5EVENTY-FIVE YEAK»S 
ON THE BORDER 

By JAMES WILLIAMS 







SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS 
ON THE BORDER 



By JAMES WILLIAMS 




KANSAS CITY: 

Press of Standard Printing Co. 

19 12 






PREFACE. 



In presenting this little work to the public, I lay 
no claim to literary merit from a scholarly point of view, 
as that would be a travesty on the good sense of the 
higher education of the present time. However, I was 
born in Central Missouri, and have lived on its western 
border for seventy-six years, and have seen the things 
I tell about in my native Missouri way of telling it, and 
believe it will be as interesting to the many as though 
it were told in nicely rounded periods of classical Eng- 
lish. 

Be that as it may, I trust that some one of these 
many stories may strike a responsive chord in the breast 
of the young, the old, the matron, the maid, the grand- 
father, the baby boy, to the end that my name shall 
go down to posterity as having done my part in blazing 
the way for our grand Civilization. 

Midway Place, Cameron, Missouri, 
February 16th, 1912. 

JAMES WILLIAMS. 







Yours truly, JAMES WILLIAMS 



-^m^^mm^^wm^ 



CHAPTER I. 



MY PARENTAGE. 

I trust my readers will not think me egotistical if 
I first mention my parentage, also a short sketch of my 
life work of 70 years at Midway Place, where I now 
live. 

My father, Luke Williams, and my mother, Louisa 
Beatty, were natives of Kentucky and came to Mis- 
souri early in the 19th century. They were married in 
Cooper County, at Boonville, Mo. They moved to 
Van Buren County, now Cass County, Mo., to where 
my first memory goes back — and removed to "Midway 
Place" April 30th, 1842, which I have ever since called 
my home. 

Luke Williams is a family name reaching back as 
far as we can trace our family — and the Baptist re- 
ligious faith is a heritage we claim to trace to the his- 
toric "Roger Williams." We claim to be lineal descend- 
ants of Roger Williams. My father was a hard working 
farmer, but found time to preach of the faith that was 
in him on Saturdays and Sundays, riding horseback 
frequently twenty-five miles home after services on 
Sunday. 

He fought the good fight and kept the faith, and 
has the promise in the Good Book of a great reward. 
He departed from us at the age of 38 years, on Nov. 
2nd, 1848, leaving us in the wilderness in a double log 
cabin, two brothers, two sisters, and a weakly mother, 
with little to live on after the doctor bills and burial 
expenses were paid. 

See Chapter on going to mill. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

Language fails me to describe the privations, the 
suffering, the cheerless gloom of that long terrible win- 
ter of '48 and '49. Chilblains, corns and bunions are 
yet painful reminders of it. I yet had a good, coura- 
geous mother and an overruling Providence decree that 
I should live to tell the painful story to my grand- 
children, 63 years afterward. 

In the next chapter I will take up the thread of my 
own life, mentioning frequently that good mother, who 
laid the foundation of honesty, probity and fair dealings 
with my fellow men, which has served me so well 
through my long business career. 



CHAPTER 2. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JAMES WILLIAMS. 

Taking up the thread of my life after my father's 
death, that brother Alex and I did not go to the bad (as 
nearly all of our surroundings were calculated to lead 
in that direction), I attribute to a good pious mother, 
and an overruling Providence. "There is a divinity 
that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will." 

For a time I thought the backwoods cabin shin- 
dig, hoe-down dance was just the place for a young 
man to have a good time, but I soon found that the 
young men who attended those midnight revelries 
seldom had any money and frequently had a bottle of 
whiskey, and usually were exceedingly popular with the 
class of girls who attend those dances. Guess I was; 
envious. So, in the early stage of the game, I decided 
that was not the kind of company I wanted to be 
found in by decent, respectable people, and I got out 
of that crowd, and stayed out. 

Those who lived here sixty or more years ago, vHU 
remember what a struggle it took to make ends meet 
at the end of the year. I've seen the time when eggs 




MY MOTHER 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



went begging at 3 cents per dozen, I have carried 
them in baskets to Plattsburg or horseback at from 5 
cents to 7 cents. I was a grown man before I ever 
had a suit of store clothes. All were home spun, woven 
and tailored, and the girls wore hoop skirts as large 
at the bottom hem as a good, big umbrella, (no hobble 
skirts then) ; grape vines were used before steel hoops 
got here. However, their cheeks were as rosy, their 
hearts as good, and their love as constant then as in this 
age of hats as big as their dress skirts were then. 

The means of getting an education sixty years ago 
were very meager. The log hut with split puncheon 
floor, with cracks so big that the boys, and girls, too, 
frequently fell through and hurt their legs in going 
to recite. It is funny to tell about now, but not so 
funny to the boy or girl who went through the floor. 
The others always laughed. 

And this was the only kind of a school house I ever 
attended. In fact, I graduated in just the kind of build- 
ing described, not more than four miles from Cameron. 
The teacher, however, neglected to give us our diplo- 
mas. Permit me to pay a tribute to that splendid 
young man, the teacher, Mr. John S. Wells. He could 
pronounce and spell every word in Webster's elemen- 
tary spelling book, without missing a word. The poor 
fellow met a tragic death shortly after at Warsaw, Mo. 

John S. Wells went to Warsaw, Mo., in an early 
day and started a surveyor's and land agency, fell in 
love with a nice lady. They went out driving on a rough 
road; their horse got frightened, ran away with them, 
throwing the lady out of the buggy. The lines wrapped 
around his feet, or legs, dragging him to death. I give 
this as I heard the story afterward. 

I was born at Boonville, Missouri, May 16th, 1834. 

In the old Webster Elementary Spelling-book, on 
the front leaf was the picture of a man climbing a 
rugged cliff on which stood the "Temple of Fame." 
I have been clambering up that rugged height for more 
than seventy years but I have not yet reached the goal. 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

As I get nearer, it seems to get higher, and more diffi- 
cult to gain its giddy summit. 

As to my business career, I was among the first to 
ship live stock, and I know I was the first man who 
shipped grain to St. Louis from Cameron in a commer- 
cial way. Grain at that time had to be sacked and re- 
shipped at Hannibal by steamer for St. Louis. I shipped 
thousands of sacks that way during war time. There 
were no bridges then spanning the Mississippi or Mis- 
souri rivers, save one at Clinton, Iowa. 

There were no banking facilities nearer than St. 
Joseph, where a strong military force was usually kept. 
All the interior banks had sent their specie either to 
large cities or to Canada, for safe keeping. Gold and 
silver were bought like any other commodity. Green 
backs were the circulating medium until the organi- 
zation of National Banks based on the credit of the 
government. 

At one time it took $2.85 in currency to equal $1.00 
in gold, hence the apparent high prices of property. 
Gold dropped in Wall street immediately after Gen- 
eral Lee's surrender, from about $2.00 to 50 cents pre- 
mium which caused the so-called "Black Friday" panic, 
when Jay Gould laid the foundation for his great for- 
tune. 

In all the considerable business I did in Cameron 
and surrounding country, not a half dozen checks were 
passed. We carried the currency (thousands of dol- 
lars) in our pockets, and paid on or before demand, and 
my credit then was as good as now. 

I shipped the first carload of salt in barrels to Came- 
ron, from Chicago. All our salt formerly came in sacks 
from the Kanawa Salt Works, in West Virginia. I sold 
the salt at $5.00 per barrel, as fast as I could roll it to the 
car door. I charged little profit, as most of my custom- 
ers had generously sold me their cattle, hogs, etc., on 
credit until I shipped them. When I returned no grass 
grew under my feet until they were paid for. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

Many is the time I've got off the rear end of the 
train and slipped around the stock lots, (which were 
then located where the big Standard Oil tanks now 
stand), and footed it home with several thousand dol- 
lars in my pockets, and cocked revolver in each hand, 
ready for instant action. The truth is, I was about as 
suspicious of some of the loafing militia soldiers, as I 
was of the Confederates or their sympathizers, hence I 
carefully dodged all of them. 

I can truthfully say of Confederate sympathizers 
(and their name was legion), that I found them as up- 
right, straight and fair men to deal with as I have ever 
met in my long business career. I have many times 
confided to Watt Matthis thousands of dollars for safe 
keeping, and no one accused Watt of being a very loud 
Union man. Watt, at that time, was not the man to 
betray confidence placed in him by a friend. 

Before closing this short abstract of my early busi- 
ness ventures, I want to say to the young men of today, 
that I never could have made even the partial success 
which crowned my early efforts, had I not rigidly kept 
my promises. Stern integrity, energetic industry and 
promptness are yet the keys to success. 

It will hardly interest my readers to follow up my 
career since "war time," as that is too well known by 
many now living. I might add I took mother's advice 
and bought all the land I could pay for, and my real 
estate deals, or some of them, have paid handsomely. 
Real estate is the "Gibraltar" of business credit. 

I wish to tender thanks to my many friends for 
their unbounded confidence in past years in my integrity 
of purpose. JAMES WILLIAMS, 

Midway Place. 

CHAPTER 3. 



MY FIRST LOVE AFFAIR. 
I think my many young friends and readers will 
relish reading the sketches of my early manhood if I 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

inject a little romance and tell them of my first love 
affair, at least I thought it a love affair, but doubt 
if the girl did. She was a nice, modest, retiring, well 
beloved young lady, with dark eyelashes and raven hair, 
and with a contour of personal charms, that any young 
man need not be ashamed of falling in love with. 

Now, I was not so desperately in love with her, but 
hoped that some day my fortune would be so improved 
that I would have a basis on which to present my suit 
to her. Alas! I found early in life that there is "many 
a slip between the cup and the lip." 

Busy tattlers and news mongers carried stories to 
me (which I found afterwards to be all made up"* that 
her parents made all sorts of fun at my expense. I 
should have known better for I was never treated better 
or received in any home with more apparent cordial 
friendship and esteem than I was by the parents of 
this estimable young lady. However, she was — as I 
myself w^as — too bashful to bo very gushing. 

They were a family who settled l^a miles east of 
Turney. about the year 1849 or 1850. They came 
from Maryland, and inherited the aristocratic tenden- 
cies of the better class of people of Lord Baltimore's 
province, whether Puritan or Cavalier. The mother was 
a pious, devoted Catholic, and. I believe, as sincere a 
Christian woman as it was ever my good fortune to 
become acquainted with. I shall never forget the good 
advice I received from her and her worthy husband. I. 
at that time, was quite poor and I felt deeply nettled 
at the stories that came to me; and. at the time be- 
lieved, they would snub me if I ever should presume 
to visit them again. The old lady was sick at the time 
this occurred. They sold their farm and moved to 
Plattsburg and I never saw her any more. She died 
shortly after. 

When w^ar was waging its wide desolation. Captain 
Turney of Plattsburg. was shot down while at the head 
of his company, gallantly defending the town, attacked 
by a struggling band of confederates, said to have been 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

commanded by Thrailkill. The whole com.munity was 
up in arms pursuing this band which had shot a militia- 
man near Turney. The battalion that I was with stopped 
at Plattsburg for dinner and in the street I met the 
father of my erstwhile sweetheart. (This v/as some 
years after he had left here.; He held out his hand, 
greeting me cordially, and took me to his home for 
dinner, together with many other hungry soldiers, and 
the dark haired lady and her sister were working like 
Trojans, cooking and waiting on hungry men. This 
was the last time I ever saw any member of this good 
family. 

I might add that both of these girls married in 
Plattsburg. The elder one I will call Julia. The fair 
haired one, Harriet, married a man who had some diffi- 
culty with a man in a billiard hall and finally shot at 
the man missing him, but killing a bystander. He was 
tried for murder and sent to the state prison for a term 
of years, but was paroled or pardoned for good behavior 
and came back to his heart-broken wife and family, 
probably a better man. I need not tell the few old peo- 
ple near Turney, the name of this good family, they 
already have guessed. The name was Lloyd Wells, and 
the girls were sisters of John S. V/eils, mentioned as the 
best speller in the state of Missouri. 

Now that my grizzled hair is almost white as snow, 
this incident comes to me like some irridescent dream 
of youth and this heart of mine will never forget the 
pleasant hours spent at the hospitable home of Lloyd 
Wells. JAMES WILLIAMS. 



CHAPTER 4. 



A LITTLE WAR TIME LOVE AFFAIR. 



While relating my early love "escapades" I had as 
well finish that particular phase of my early manhood. 
That I did not marry earlier in life, I attribute to several 
reasons. 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

To begin, I was handicapped with poverty, and a 
weakly mother and two sisters. Being the oldest of the 
family, I felt in duty bound to stay with and help them 
as much as I could, and I have never regretted that I 
did so. 

I took Mother Wells' advice and set my gx)al so 
high that to this day I have not been able to quite reach 
it; try as I will. I will say this much, if I ever made any 
advances to a young lady you can rest assured I thought 
she was among the best in the land. 

I was not calculated to impress the girls much with 
my beauty of person. A great uncouth, bronzed, big foot- 
ed, unpolished, back woods youth, who studied more how 
to get together some of this world's goods and store up a 
little useful knowledge, than to learn how to say those 
soft nothings that most girls like so well to have whisper- 
ed in their ear. So it will be seen that I was in no sense 
a "Ladies' Man." 

I here give only one little romantic episode of my 
love experience in war time. Old soldiers will remember 
that we did not stand and wait for a formal introduction 
to a young lady. 

As I have said before, I shipped considerable stock, 
grain, etc., in war time. This incident, or love escapade, 
happened on a Hannibal & St. Joseph train about fifty 
miles west of Hannibal, bound west. The train that day 
had one Platte County, (now part of the K .C. & Council 
Bluffs division of the Burlington system,) new passenger 
car and about four freight cars loaded with barreled pork 
for the soldiers at Leavenworth; we didn't have any big 
packing houses in the West at that time. 

The Confederate bushwhackers had sawed the cross 
ties on a high embankment. The rails spread when the 
engine struck the weakened track, and the engine left 
the track, but did not roll down the embankment, but 
the 4 cars of pork did, many of the barrels going through 
the side of the car, and rolling out on the edge of the 
right of way. The bushwhackers fired on the engineers 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

and firemen, who were protected with thick sheet iron 
lining to the cab, and none were seriously hurt. 

During the several hours detention, I noticed an 
elderly gentleman and lady with two young ladies, whom 
I took to be their daughters. The mother and one of 
the girls had red — no, auburn hair; the other had raven 
black hair, eye lashes, brows and rosy cheeks which 
would put a ripe peach in the background. This fair 
brunette had a memorandum book and gold looking 
pencil (one of those nice little telescope affairs so popu- 
lar with literary young ladies of that period). While 
the railroad people were repairing the track and getting 
the engine back on it, she appeared to be taking notes of 
what was going on, and I had nothing else to do but to 
fall in love with her. Somehow, young men, especially 
those who had seen a little military service, naturally 
fell in love with a pretty girl ; they had to have a sweet- 
heart, and most of the girls kind o' intimated they rather 
liked to have sweethearts, as well. In this case, I'd 
have given a five cent green back shinplaster's worth of 
chewing gum (if I'd had it) to have known how to ap- 
proach this fair lady. It couldn't be done, father mother, 
sister, all there, I, a total stranger in a strange and hos- 
tile land. 

The day ran wearily on. Along late in the evening, 
"toot, toot" came from the engine and the train was 
soon in motion. The worst freight train nowadays fur- 
nishes better transportation than passenger trains did 
then. The night dragged along. Brookfield, Chilli- 
cothe, Hamilton, were called. Meantime, I was grow- 
ing desperate; didn't take much then to make a young 
man grow desperate when a pretty girl was in sight. 
Something had to be done quickly. Both the girls were 
dozing in one seat in the crowded car, and I had noticed 
they had put their skirts, or some toggery, on the shelf 
overhead and a little in front of them. An idea struck 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

me. Taking a leaf from a memorandum book. I wrote 
as follows: 

"James Williams, a single man of Cameron, 
Mo., was on the train when the bushwhackers 
tried to wreck it west of Palmyra, Mo. Would 
like, if agreeable, to correspond, etc." 

I put this little billet doux in an open pocket in that 
skirt overhead, and trusted to woman's curiosity to do 
the rest ; it did it. In a few days a little note in a dainty 
envelope, in beautiful handwriting, addressed "J^^^s 
Williams, Cameron, Mo.," came to hand. The funny 
part was, I'd gotten the little billet doux in the red headed 
girl's pocket, but I'd guarded against such a calamity by 
saying it was the girl who was taking notes that I 
wanted to know more about. She very coyly tried to 
find out how I got that missive in that pocket. She 
never found out from me. 

I was elated with my success so far. She told me 
in that letter she was a Pennsylvania "school marm" on 
the way to Emporia, Kas., with her parents. A nice 
little correspondence sprung up between us, in which I 
talked about the war, cattle, hogs, etc. I doubt if she, 
at that time, knew a hog from a steer. However, she 
had a good prospect ahead to get information along these 
lines. I rashly promised to go to Emporia to show her 
my beauty and polished manners, not taking into con- 
sideration there was no great deal of love for Missourians 
in Kansas at that time, and that trip would have to be 
made on horseback, nearly 200 miles. The more I con- 
templated the trip, the more my ardor, or love, cooled 
down. The correspondence slackened on her part; at 
least, I think I hastened it by sending an awfully poor 
daguerreotype picture of James Williams postmarked 
Cameron, Mo. 

She acted wisely by marrying a Judge somebody, 
an old widower, as I learned many years after. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



CHAPTER 5. 



MY MARRIAGE. 

What a curious and flexible thing is the human 
heart, either in love or business ! A young man, or lady 
either, may, in their young days, be crossed in a little 
love affair, and for the time being think they are irre- 
trievably ruined, broken up and gone. All that most of 
them have to do for a cure, is not to waste very much 
of their young lives grieving because they have been 
crossed a little. They will find that all the red roses 
don't grow in one garden. 

The writer has had experience in almost every phase 
of love escapades, and business reverses as well as some 
successes, and his heart is not broken, and he still has 
some hair on his hoary head at nearly eighty years of 
age. 

After many of these little love affairs, whether real, 
sentimental, funny or pathetic, he finally, at about thirty 
years of age, not relishing the idea of being an old bach- 
elor, and with the instinct of all created beings of trans- 
mitting to posterity a name that his own might not go 
down to oblivion, concluded that it was getting time to 
find a sure enough sweetheart. In the meantime, his 
experience along this line, as well as business contact 
with the great outside world had taken out of his make- 
up some of that diffidence and choky feeling while try- 
ing to be pleasing to his lady love. 

So he worshipped at Beauty's shrine, telling her he 
loved the ground she walked on, and all that soft, sen- 
timental stuff that most pretty girls like so well to have 
whispered in their ear. So one day, or possibly night. 



SEVENTY -FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

V.let him confess "^ he proposcxi to her: &he intiir.a:c\i 
**y«s." and on the last Thursday cx-ening ct the year 
1S64. we were married. 



"She ^r:Jl^r.^«; i rr.-vn who was very psjcvr. 

And rr.iny ch.-.'.dren ?'.Ay<xi arcund her door — 

N:ac in jul his §>.? hid. 

Sfwn now ii\-.n»: And tw-o ir* drAd. 

"L-.tt'f C^ar'.fv" was hrst thAt d-.ed; 

I Tf -.ow wTf wept And cried. 

\\'>. 5. WAS foroed to go. 

And tr.ey now Ue side by side. 

There is a little nx^n*. leit between 

The iTAves of mother 

And Eliha B. and l-.ttle brother 

Six feet by three 

Wul be enoujih for me. 

Well sleer there close together. 

And in the Kesurrection mom. 

Tbey will rejoice thAt they wrre born. 

The names cf our children are: Rosa Be!>. now 
Mrs- Jos, E. Thompson. Wallace E. »^Little Charley^. 
Luke, Roland H. ^^Elihu B.\ Maude, now Mrs. F. Mar- 
tin. Herbert S. and ""RogTtr Williams," I now have 
seven grandchildren, all girls, and there is a possibility 
that my name m.ay not be transmined in my own family. 
However. I've two bo%-s unmarried yet : cf course, they 
want to marry. They ought to marn.-. 

Mid^vav Place. Dec, 16. 1911. 



CHAPTER 6. 



MY TWO SISTERS— SALLY ANN A\D ANN 
ELIZA WILLIAMS. 

The older. Sally A., was about sever, years and Ann 
Elira was about four years old when our father died. 
We had a tough time. I can say. but Nsnfnt through it 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

all right and are all alive yet, sixly-three years since 
that, to us, sad event. However, time is telling on our 
feeble frames. We are tottering down — 

"Shades of evening, close not o'er us, 
Leave our lonely barque awhile, 
That wc may view just before us 
Yonder dim and distant Isle." 

The younger married John Schreck early in Janu- 
ary, 1865, and Sally A. stayed with mother and me for 
several years. During war time, she went to the school 
of the good Sisters of the Sacred Heart Convent at St. 
Joseph. Although immovable in her Christian faith, she 
was awarded the highest honors of the school, whose 
scholars were a large majority Catholics, on a tie vote 
between her and a good Catholic girl. She never tires 
of saying nice things about those good Sisters of the 
Convent. 

After returning home, she taught school in her home 
district for many terms, finally marrying John L. Hock- 
ensmith. She has one girl, Miss Mary Hockensmith, 
now living with her at Turney, Mo. I am glad to say, 
Sally has stood by me in every trial in life, through evil, 
as well as good, report, and I can say with a clear con- 
science, I've never betrayed any trust she has placed 
in me. 

We are now tottering down the shady evening of 
life. We love to recount the many incidents of our 
childhood days, some of them comical, some pathetic, 
others tragic and sorrowful, with many very pleasant 
memories of early youth — 

"Days and years revolve but slowly. 
Time grows tedious to the young, 
In the hope of coming pleasure, 
Soon our days and years are gone; 
Soon they're gone, we know not whither, 
Age steals on us unaware." 

Sister Ann Eliza married a Mr. John Schreck. They 
now live about fifty miles west of Oklahoma City on a 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

good farm. Have several children, I think all married. 
The oldest, Leslie, has been a commercial traveler for 
many years, commencing with the Wyeth Hardware Co. 
of St. Joseph, when a boy of 10 or 12 years of age, at a 
salary of $12.00 a month or less. Is now with the Sim- 
mons "Keen Kutter" Hardware Co. of St. Louis, said to 
be the largest hardware company in the world, at a sal- 
ary of about $3000.00 per annum. 

The oldest girl, Alice, married a successful furniture 
man of Falls City, Nebraska. Alice is one of the best 
of my kinsfolk and deserves the best in the land. 



CHAPTER 7. 



AN INDIAN STORY. 



THRILLING ACCOUNT OF AN INDIAN SCARE IN 
THE PIONEER DAYS. 



Early Settlers Fortified For Twelve Hours Against the 
Red Men— Thirst Drives Them Forth. 



My father settled the farm I now live on in the 
spring of 1842, moving from Van Buren (now Cass) 
County, Mo. He hired his youngest brother, William 
(better known in this community as Uncle Bill Will- 
iams), to come with him to help him improve his new 
place. For a time everything went exceedingly well 
until Uncle Bill fell desperately in love with Miss Har- 
riet, daughter of that old pioneer, Isaac D. Baldwin. It 
was such a distressing case of love that it totally unfitted 
the young man for business, and resulted in their mar- 
riage the following autumn. When the honeym-oon was 
over, Uncle Bill went to work in earnest, and settled on 
the farm now owned by Mr. Ezra Charlton. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

It was along in the fall of 1843 that my father and 
Uncle Bill had occasion to go back to Cass county to 
finish some unsettled business, expecting to be gone some 
ten days. It was arranged that Aunt Harriet should 
come and stay with mother and us children while father 
and uncle were gone. They had been gone several days 
when the incident of which I write occurred. We had 
a seap spring dug out just where prairie and timber came 
together, northwest of our house about 150 yards. 

Just at dark mother discovered that there was but 
little water for over night. So aunt took a water pail 
and started for the spring. After being gone a few min- 
utes she came running back terribly frightened at what 
she said was a great big Indian with his black-striped 
blanket drawn over his shoulders. It was now growing 
dark, and we were too badly scared to attempt to g'o to 
any of the neighbors, so we concluded to fortify and 
hold the fort. 

Mother, having been in Missouri during the war of 
1812, and having lived Vv'ith Captain Calloway, son-in-law 
of the old Indian fighter, Daniel Boone, was supposed to 
know something of Indian strategy, so it devolved on 
her to do the planning. After counseling it was decided 
that she and aunt should dress up in men's cl'othes to 
make the Indians believe there were several men about 
the place — I will digress a little by saying that the In- 
dians from the territory west of the Missouri River came 
over in Missouri every fall for several years after I lived 
here to hunt, and it was no uncommon thing to see the 
woods full of them. 

Well, now the funny part of the story commences. 
Aunt Harriet tried putting on a pair of my father's old 
brown jeans breeches. After an exciting struggle she 
succeeded in putting them on over her clothing, but the 
legs were rather long ; they were rolled up, but would not 
stay up. Mother sewed them for her. The next m'ove 
was the coat. So they hunted up an old sleeve jacket 
(round-about or womus as they were called at that time). 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

Now, for the finishing touch, I went under the bed and 
fished out a pile of old rubbish an old and very dilapi- 
dated two story plug hat, the upper story badly caved in. 
She donned the hat, and I will say from that day to this 
I have never seen a more laughable looking piece of hu- 
manity. Every time I think of her grotesque appearance, 
a smile will involuntarily come to my face. Next for 
her armament. We had but one gun, and I, being quite 
an expert for my age in the use of a rifle, it was decided 
that I was tx> use the gun. So aunt, for appearance, took 
the long hickory poker that was invariably found in all 
cabins at that day, throwed it across her shoulder and 
commenced her stately tread as a man of war. 

Meantime mother and I were not idle. She, seeing 
the heroic efforts of my aunt to get into the breeches, 
concluded that she could make a pretty good appearance 
by putting on a large overcoat of my father's, which was 
made of a Mackinaw blanket that had black stripes 
around for a border, and to recompense for the lack of 
pants she put on a pair of old Stoga boots, and stuffed 
her dress in the tops of them, and taken altogether, her 
toilet was almost as ludicrous as aunt's. After getting 
on her suit she went down toward the horse stable and 
gave orders in as coarse a voice as she could affect to 
Thomas and John, two imaginary servants, about the 
feeding of several imaginary horses. Meanwhile I was 
firing minute guns with the old rifle at intervals as long 
as my ammunition held out. So the night drew on 
apace. Meanwhile we had given up keeping out a 
picket so we had all gone into the cabin and bar- 
ricaded the rough clap-board door with a large square 
table, built up a rousing log fire for light, and kept 
up as much noise as possible. At about 10 o'clock we 
all got very sleepy and finally concluded that the Indians 
perhaps might not have meant any harm. We slept till 
daybreak, and with the excitement and big fire, were so 
thirsty that we had to have water. So I took the gun 
as a guard, mother and aunt a pail each, and we went 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

cautiously down toward the spring. It was just getting 
light and the object about where aunt had seen her 
Indian. It was a ground h-og case— we had to have 
water We did not run, but approached the object 
cautiously, when, behold! it was nothing more than an 
old stump that had been burned around the roots, which 
accounted for the Indian and the black stnpe on his 
blanket. 



CHAPTER 8. 

MY FIRST COMMERCIAL VENTURE. 
ABOUT THE LONG AGO. 



Reminiscence of The Days When Clinton County Was 

a Wild. 



Cameron, Mo., March 26th, 1896. 
Editor of The Leader. 

On reading in last week's Plattsburg Leader the let- 
ter of Gen. Bela M. Hughes, it brought to my mmd a 
Uttle incident which occurred more than fifty years ago 
in which your father, Thos. McMichael, myself, and 
General B. M. Hughes were the actors. 

The earlier settlers will remember that at that time 
county produce consisted mostly of furs, pelts, beeswax, 
venison, hams, and etc. As my father had settled out 
on Shoal Creek, in the vicinity of that old pioneer, Isaac 
D. Baldwin, which was then an almost unbroken wilder- 
ness of timber and underbrush, with skirts of prairie 
intervening, it was a paradise for wild game, such as 
deer, turkey, prairie chickens, quail, and etc. My father 
was quite expert at hunting with the rifle, which was to 
be found in every settler's cabin, and usually of a fall he 
dressed and smoked a lot of venison hams. 



19 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

On one fine morning in October my parents con- 
cluded to send me to Plattsburg, then the only village 
in the county (Haynesville had not been heard of then), 
to sell some produce, which consisted of a fine pair of 
venison hams, nicely dressed and smoked. 

After a long and irksome ride over the old Far West 
trail, I arrived on the hill north -of town, just as the bell 
in old man Palmer's old rickety belfry, which surmounted 
the old Hotel, was giving out its melodious chimes an- 
nouncing to wayfarers that the noon meal was about 
ready. Arrived, I hitched my horse, and took the meal 
bag containing my produce on my back, and rather ir- 
resolutely (it was my first commercial venture), started 
for McMichael's store. When I entered Mr. McMichael 
was waiting on a customer. I stood in one corner, too 
diffident to say a word. As soon as the customer had 
been waited on, Mr. McMichael came to me v/ith a pleas- 
ant greeting, and asked me whose son I was. I told him 
Luke Williams'. And what can I do for you my son? 
I told him (as he had gained my confidence by his kind 
words) that I bad some deer's hams, as I called them, for 
sale. He looked at them, and said that they were very 
fine, and asked me the price. I answered, "Pap" said to 
ask a dollar, but if I could not get that to take 75 cents, 
whereupon he told me that he was fully supplied, but to 
take them over to the land-office; that Mr. Hughes 
v/ould buy them, but to ask the dollar, and take nothing 
less. Feeling reassured th?t I had one friend in Platts- 
burg, I bounded nimbly up the steps of the little one 
story building in which was the United States land-office, 
and I v/ell remember just how Mr. Hughes looked with 
beautiful wavy hair, and quill pen behind his ear. He 
looked every inch the gentleman that he was. He exam- 
ined my goods critically, and without an}; haR:gIing 
pulled out of his pocket a bright Mexican silver dollar, 
and gave it to me, and with part of the proceeds of that 
sale I made the most valuable purchase of my life, for 
I found that I had enough money left from the big sale 
of my hams to more than pay for the few little articles 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

mother sent for, and I bought a copy t)f Pike's Arithme- 
tic, and learned from it as a text book, and studied hard 
to master its problems. What little I know of mathe- 
matics the foundation was laid in the purchase of that 
little book. And well do I remember mother's smile and 
encouraging words of approbation for my purchasing a 
useful book in place of toys and sweet-meats. 

My mother claimed to be a distant relative of Gen- 
eral Hughes, through the Metcalf family of Kentucky. 

JAMES WILLIAMS. 



CHAPTER 9. 



A 'POSSUM HUNT SIXTY-TWO YEARS AGO. 

While in Cass County going to that school that I've 
mentioned several times, at which the writer and Lottie 
Farmer had the spelling contest for the little Bible, I 
and three of my cousins, brothers of Luke Williams, our 
teacher, one nice, moonshiny night concluded to go out 
coon and 'possum hunting in the woods of the north 
fork of Big Creek, near where Greenwood in Jackson 
County now is. We frequently went 'possum hunting 
late in the fall after the persimmons had been frozen sev- 
eral times. One can depend on finding the opossum 
where there are plenty of persimmons. 

My cousins had a great, big tom cat, a good fighter. 
We'd get a 'possum, which would always sulk, or as is 
sometimes said of persons, "you're possuming" (trying 
to deceive), and carry him home by his long, scaly tail. 
Then we'd get Thomas, and take a good long string and 
tie Thomas' tail to his 'possumship's tail, and throw one 
of them across the pole on which they used to hang up 
hogs at "hog killing time ;" let me tell my boy friends it 
didn't take Tom long to wake up out of his apparent 
trance his 'possumship and at it they went, and it was 
not long before Tom began to rue that he'd picked a 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

quarrel with that old 'possum, and we would always 
have to come to Tom's rescue, or that 'possum would 
have soon put poor Thom. "hors de combat." 

So away we went to catch 'possums, coons, or any- 
thing else that would make fun. We had two monster 
grey hounds. Not the little, long legged type, but great, 
big fellows nearly as big as some of Teddy Roosevelt's 
African lions killed in his famous hunting expedition. 
We had no luck that night in treeing either coons or 
'possums, and had started home, when, at once the dogs 
started full speed after some animal running furiously 
through the brush and timber. We stopped and listened. 
They ran, whatever it was they were after, down under 
a high cliff, yelling and snapping such as I had not heard 
before or since. They seemed to have him backed up 
in a niche, grotto, or some place they could not more 
than one of them get at him at a time, snapping and 
yelling as though they'd been hurt by the animal they 
had at bay. 

Finally we boys, took a scare and we made tracks 
for home in a hurry, without finding out what Lesco and 
Yellow, the names of the big greyhounds had under that 
cliff. We concluded they had come suddenly on one, or 
more of those big, black or grey timber wolves, which 
got in a place where he could defend himself by snap- 
ping at them, and only one could approach him at a time, 
or they would have pulled him out and killed him, which 
they frequently did. 



CHAPTER 10. 



HEMP AND BACON GOING TO MARKET. 

I think it will bring a broad smile to the faces of 
many of my latter day friends when I tell them that 
Mirabile was the market for the above hemp and bacon. 

My father raised about two acres of hemp the sum- 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

mcr he died, 1848. Hemp, at that day, was almost as 
legal a tender for goods as was the "coin of the realm." 
They cut it in August with a kind of a draghook with 
long handle, by hand-spreading it out behind them. 
They cut a swath about as wide as the hemp was long 
to have room to spread it. They took it up in about ten 
days, knocked the dry leaves -off and put it in shocks 
tying them at top like corn. They let the shocks stand 
until thoroughly dry, then spread them out on the same 
ground to rot the stems so they would break in a hemp 
break when properly rotted. 

It devolved on me, as a boy of 13 years, to prepare 
this patch of hemp for market. After getting it properly 
rotted, I borrowed an old flax break in the neighborhood 
(a flax break is too small to break hemp well) and kept 
pegging away at it, threshing the hands of lint across the 
top of the break to get the shoves out, as we called the 
broken stems from which the lint peeled off in the pro- 
cess of breaking. 

After finishing a hand we'd twist it up something 
like twist tobacco only leaving about half of the frazzled 
ends loose, but tying it securely where we left off twist- 
ing. Where a large commercial crop was raised in the 
river counties, these "hands" were placed in a nice bale, 
then put under a great screw press and were very solid, 
and compact enough to ship to Liverpool, the hemp mar- 
ket of the world, there to be made into cordage and 
shrouding for the great sail ships for the commerce of 
the civilized world. We didn't have a screw press, but 
used a long pole, the short end in a crack of a log stable. 
A wide slab was laid on the top of the pile of hemp with 
a V-shaped block for a fulcrum on top of the slab. One 
boy at the long end of lever pressed down, while another 
boy tied the ropes — we had no wire baling ties then. 

In this way we got two bales weighing about 100 
pounds each. We also had about four middlings of bacon 
to spare, and we needed shoes and other goods more than 
we did "hemp and bacon," so we lashed two middlings on 
top of each bale of hemp, putting a good, big piece of 

23 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

carpet on the horses instead of saddles. We two boys 
each mounted the horses, first putting our produce on 
top of a stake— and — ridered fence to facilitate loading it 
on horses before us. 

Talk about transportation; talk about caravans of 
the desert! I'll say this was the toughest transportation 
job I ever tackled. Just think of one boy 13 and another 
about 10 years old keeping that huge bundle on a horse 
for ten miles without a saddle or stirrups ! And to make 
it more aggravating to us, we met some men just a mile 
or so this side of our goal. They looked astonished, and 
one of them rather jocosely remarked, "Hemp and bacon 
going to market," but we got there just the same. 

The balance of that crop of hemp rotted in the field. 
There has never been another hemp seed sown on Mid- 
way Place Farm from that day to this. 

This true story of my experience in the halcyon days 
of hemp raising in the Missouri Valley, I give to my 
friends as a Christmas present this December 25th, 1911. 



CHAPTER 11. 



HOW DAVE KIRKPATRICK AND ZEKE DUN- 
CAN BEAT SOME THREE-CARD 
MONTE MEN AT OMAHA. 

Dave and Zeke were native backwoods boys of our 
neighborhood, whom the writer knew all their lives. 
In fact I was a pupil of Dave's father in that primitive 
school; he taught near Cameron a long time before the 
town was laid out, and for that day, was an excellent 
teacher. 

Dave had inherited a little land from his father's 
estate, which he had sold to Judge Estep for $400.00 
or $500.00 in cash, so he and Zeke started out to see the 
world, bound for California. The Union Pacific at that 
time was the only transcontinental line finished to the 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

Pacific coast, so if one would go west, he would neces- 
sarily have to go via Omaha, 

Our two young friends went to Omaha, which at 
that time, was a pretty lively burg. Of course, Dave 
and Zeke drifted into a saloon and gambling den. Dave 
had about all the money in the crowd, all in bank bills 
in an inside vest pocket. Dave was not near as green 
as he looked ; in fact, Dave had seen som.e of the smooth, 
pasteboard gentry before. They gawked around the 
gaming tables till finally they ran onto two fellows, 
one of whom was fooling with three cards. The other 
seemed to be a stranger, as was Dave and Zeke. The 
one looking on finally commenced asking the one who 
was fooling with the cards some questions about what 
he was trying to do, so the dealer explained the trick 
of monte to all three of the bystanders, shuffling his 
cards from hand to hand as monte men do. Dave 
and Zeke's new found friend, remarked that that man 
must have money to throw at birds, or he would not 
offer to bet on a thing that was so plain that any one 
could win his money, telling them how easy it was to 
follow a given card with the eye, then put their money 
down on it and rake off the pile. 

Dave, looking just as green as he possibly could, 
took out a big, black plug of Navy, bit off a "chaw" and 
handed the plug to Zeke, who followed suit, standing 
around and 'ooking on at the various games going on. 
Finally Da\ • reached 'way down under his coat and 
fumbled around, digging up his wallet containing the 
$500.00, and, taking a ten out, put the wallet back in 
the vest pocket as carefully as a veritable old miser 
would have done, and told the dealer he'd try his luck 
any way. 

Now that big wallet of ready cash in the- hands 
of a green looking country boy opened the heart of a 
three-card monte dealer for once, which seldom occurs, 
so he covered Dave's ten and let Dave win, thinking 
he had a sure thing on most of that wad of Dave's, but 
it turned out he'd "reckoned without his host." On 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

Dave's winning, the smooth partner said, "I told you 
I knew that you could detect the winning card with 
that quick eye of yours," pulling out a roll saying, "I'll 
go your partner and we'll bust this concern and put them 
out of business." Whereupon Dave coolly took another 
chew of tobacco, remarking he did not care to win more 
than ten dollars at one time from a lot of three-card 
monte black legs, saying, "Let's go, Zeke." I got this 
story from Zeke several years after both had returned. 

I'll give a little of my own experience with "con- 
fidence men" and three-card sharpers. I have never 
seen much of them as I would never loaf around a saloon 
or gambling house. From my boyhood, I've despised 
games of cards of every kind, even when lying around in 
camp in war time. Seeing those games going on day 
and night, I never even learned the value of any card 
in any of the various games played. I've always avoided 
them, and I believe if all the cards that I've consigned 
to the flames on my farm could be gotten into a pile, 
they would fill a peck measure. Hired hands would 
have them, and on rainy days would have their games 
in the hay mow in the barn, and carelessly leave them 
in sight, and if I found them, they never furnished any 
further amusement. 

In time of the war, on one trip to Chicago I shipped 
two cars of hogs and sold them at the Cottage Grove 
Yards, which were located near the Douglass place, the 
old homestead of the little giant Democratic politician, so 
renowned for his debates with the immortal Lincoln. 

I sold them myself, as usual at that time, the buyer 
paying me the current funds in bank bills. After paying 
freight and hotel bills, I bounced a "hoss car" and 
headed north on State street for the business part of 
the city. I think I was intending to buy some gold 
coin to bring home for some of my "clientele," who were 
able to hoard it against a sudden emergency, which fre- 
quently happened in those dreadful days. 

I was walking leisurely along a street, I think in 
the vicinity of Mr. Gage's bank, who, it will be re- 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

membered, was a good many years later, Secretary of 
the Treasury in President Cleveland's administration, 
I believe. While going a little slowly looking for a bank, 
a slick looking fellow suddenly accosted me, saying, 
"Didn't I meet you down at the Cottage Grove Stock 
Yards?" I looked him over, instantly concluding he was 
entirely too familiar, but as it was in broad daylight, and 
on a crowded street, it went through my head I'd see 
what he was up to. He said to me, "I presume you had 
stock in, as I saw you weighing some hogs." I answered 
in the affirmative. His next question was, "What part of 
the country do you ship from?" Replying, I told him 
from Cameron, Missouri, whereupon he volunteered the 
information that he was a merchant from St. Joseph and 
had brought in a lot of stock also, and that was why 
he had come to see and recognize me on the street and 
he kept on talking his familiar gab. 

It seemed I could not get rid of him; if I walked 
a little faster, he'd do the same. If I walked slower, 
he'd do likewise, and kept discussing the markets. I 
suspicioned him from the first, but believed he was a 
pickpocket, and kept a sharp lookout for my money, 
which I had in an inside vest pocket buttoned at top of 
the pocket so a pickpocket could not possibly get it with- 
out cutting a big hole through the coat and vest, or 
by violence, and I thought there was little danger of 
either on that crowded business street in daylight. 

Suddenly, he met a man and they shook hands very 
cordially and commenced bantering about a case of 
laces, or goods. They seemed to be apart on the price, 
one, then the other, conceding a little till they closed 
the trade. It was then it instantly dawned on me they 
were scoundrels, as no such wholesale dry goods sale 
as that was ever consummated out in a busy street. 
I waited a little to see the outcome of that deal. The 
buyer took out a $1,000.00 bill and a $500.00 one; I 
think the amount was about $1,400.00 that bogus deal 
called for. They fumbled around quite a spell trying to 
make change, when, finally, my Missouri friend said 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

to me, "Would you be kind enough to change one of 
these bills for us; it seems we can't make it ourselves." 
I instantly saw their game was to pass a big counter- 
feit bill on me, and get good money in change, where- 
upon I told them I did not change money in a crowded 
street, and pointed out Mr. Gage's bank saying it would 
be a good place to do the kind of business they appeared 
to be doing, but I did not think they could put a big 
counterfeit bill on the bank. 

I then yelled "police," and the coat tails of those 
slick confidence fellows stood out behind them level 
enough for a three-card monte man to have practised 
his juggling art on. When the police arrived I told 
him how those fellows tried to scoop me, but had failed. 
The policeman said they had, w^ithin the last few days, 
beaten several victims out of big v/ads of money. 

It seemed the confidence and three-card monte men 
had determined not to let me get home that trip. I 
arrived in Quincy next morning, and at that time had 
to take the Keokuk Packet boat to Hannibal (the 
Quincy and Palmyra cut-off had not then been made). 
The boat was at the wharf taking on a lot of freight. 
I had nothing to do, and went up into the cabins, 
where there were many nice looking people. 

It was quite warm, and a rather affable gentleman, 
who had commenced a conversation with me on weather, 
crop prospects, etc. (he could see I was a granger and 
concluded I might be gullible) proposed we'd go up 
on top of the boat where there were some people al- 
ready. So, not thinking of any scheme, I v/ent along 
and we strolled around to the back end, or stern, of 
the upper deck, when, suddenly my chaperon ran nearly 
into a fellow, who was, as usual, fooling with three 
cards. It instantly flashed on me what my genial, new 
found friend was up to. He pretended surprise, and, 
stepping back a little, asked the card man what he was 
driving at, who told him that over in town that morn- 
ing, he saw a fellow who pretended that he could shuf- 



SEVENTY-FIVE fEARS ON THE BORDER 

fle cards back and forth so quickly the eye could not 
follow him — the usual three-card man's racket. 

My friend pretended to get intensely interested, 
and finally proposed to me that we'd try our luck just 
for fun. I was so disgusted I felt like kicking them 
both over the railing into the river, and I plainly told 
them they had struck the wrong man for a victim of 
three-card monte black legs, and immediately walked 
away. 



CHAPTER 12. 



J. Q. A. KEMPER. 

I have known personally and well the elder J. Q. 
A. Kemper, of Cam-eron, Missouri, nov; in his 86th year. 
He came to Missouri in 1850, and I have known him 
since that time. He is now living with a daughter in 
Cameron, and I frequently meet with him, and we 
always drift into ye olden times talk. He has raised 
a large family of sons, who are very prosperous busi- 
ness men. Mr. Kemper is a relative of the well known 
financiers in Kansas City, of same name and nativity. 
He has steadfastly kept "the faith once delivered to the 
saints" as expounded by "Roger vVilliams" in early 
Colonial days, as did his ancestors. 

He participated in the little battle at Camden Point, 
Missouri, as did his father-in-law, Ex-Governor George 
Smith, and is one of the three or four of us left, who 
v/ere in that fight. I will relate an incident of that 
brush fight which I omitted to record in another de- 
scription of it. 

At the first fire of the confederates on us, several 
of our brave fellows, who were in the rear in that 
narrow lane, turned their back to danger and made 
themselves scarce in that vicinity, and never stopped 
until they arrived in Cameron, and one or two in Kings- 
ton. These were the kind of men who were so indus- 
trious with cards of nights, and made the night hideous 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

singing "Joe Bowers" in a major key (if they had any 
key at all). 

The Kempers have always stood high as business 
men and good citizens, and have the confidence and es- 
teem of all. 



CHAPTER 13. 



COLONEL A. W. DONIPHAN. 

I can not possibly throw any additional light on the 
brilliant career of one of Missouri's early day lawyers, 
soldiers and citizens. Col. A. W. Doniphan. It was my 
good fortune to hear his eloquence and pathos in one 
of (perhaps) the greatest efforts of his long legal career. 

Three men of St. Joseph, Missouri, had taken a 
man by the name of Willard out into a wooded seclu- 
sion, handcuffed and tied him, stripped his shirt off and 
cowhided him by turns, pouring whiskey, or trying to, 
into him, and drinking it themselves off and on for 
nearly half of a hot day in July, until he, Willard, suc- 
cumbed from sheer exhaustion and torture, as shown 
by Jenning's confession, who was found guilty and 
hanged in St. Joseph a year after the murder. There 
is but little question that Jennings was the least guilty 
of the participants in this most brutal murder. One of 
my neighbors, Mr. John Pawley, was present and wit- 
nessed Jenning's execution. He was a poor man so it 
didn't take justice long to overtake him. 

Not so with Langston, who had some property. 
Three or four prominent St. Joseph lawyers, including 
Col. A. W. Doniphan of Liberty, were employed by 
Langston in his defense. The prosecution was assisted 
by Silas Woodson, who had recently settled in St. 
Joseph, and was elected Governor of Missouri many 
years after. (I'll refer my readers to page 407, His- 
tory of Clinton County for full account of this tragedy, 
which occurred at St. Joseph in the year 1852, 60 years 
since.) I'll also call attention to what Col. Doniphan 

30 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

says in another chapter of the above mentioned his- 
tory, in writing of great lawyers, among others his 
distinguished opponent in this celebrated trial. 

I didn't hear the evidence, but Jennings' confession 
gives a good idea of the whole transaction. Every- 
body who read the St. Joseph papers at that time were 
familiar with the facts brought out in Jennings' trial. 
All I cared for was to hear the two most brilliant ora- 
tors of the bar of Western Missouri at that time. From 
that day to this, I've not heard such matchless ora- 
tory, as fell from the lips of Doniphan pleading with 
the jury to spare the life of his client, Langston. 
Pleading not for acquittal, but for life. At times there 
was hardly a dry eye in that little old brick temple of 
justice, his brilliant pathos swaying the audience and to 
some extent, the jury (I thought at the time). I never 
have known of a murderer, whom I thought merited 
the death penalty any more than did Langston, taking 
Jennings' confession as facts, which were undoubtedly 
true. 

On the other side. Governor Woodson depicted to 
the jury the pleadings of poor Willard, who was being 
whipped to death by three men just because he owed 
them some little bills, and had not the money to pay 
them with, and kept putting them off, as is the case fre- 
quently with delinquent debtors, terrible scathing denun- 
ciations of the brutality of any human beings, who could 
be so lost to pity and the pleadings for mercy of the 
dying man, made such an impression on me at the time, 
much as I have been against the death sentence, I would 
have voted guilty of murder in the first degree, while 
Jennings did not think murder was contemplated, and 
probably would not have occurred had it not been for 
the inevitable filling up with whiskey, which is the usual 
stimulant to such brutality. 

Doniphan's eloquence triumphed and saved the neck 
of Langston, who got 20 years in the pen., and was par- 
doned out a few years later by Bob Stewart, governor of 
Missouri. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

at that time as such, had he been a representative of 
Ghenghis Kahn or Adbel Alcader. However, this pon- 
derous Judge had a gleam of poetry, or romance, in his 
make up, and must some time, in early life, have read 
"The Lady of the Lake" ; they named their boy, "Walter 
Scott". It might have been at Mrs. Scott's suggestion. 

And now I've come to the last, the six foot tall, 
slender Miss Mariah Scott. She was not quite as tall as 
her father, nor did she have the ponderous avoirdupois 
of her worthy sire. She was the reigning belle of that 
bridge dance, and it looked awfully dangerous the way 
she slung herself and those young Confederates around 
on that high bridge that day. I suppose, however, she 
was only aiming to get the boys used to danger, and well 
she might. I can think of not more than one or two of 
those who went south in such a hurry that bright May 
morning who ever returned. Among those that went 
was Anderson Franklin, a good hearted fellow, who was 
a brother of Ben Franklin of Kansas City, who was a 
prominent lawyer for many years, and was, in President 
Cleveland's administration, appointed as Minister to one 
of the South American Republics, and later on. Governor 
of Arizona Territory. I have had recently a letter from 
one of his sons. 

However, this is only one among thousands of other 
like incidents in '61. 



CHAPTER 16. 



HOW A LYNX LOOKS. 
About 40 years ago, I was going for Dr. Scott, who 
lived five miles south of our place on a place n-ow owned 
by Mr. John Estep. I went by the old Burkhart place 
and aimed to, and did finally, cross Shoal Creek just 
above where a tall steel bridge spans the stream one-half 
mile northwest of the Henderson farm, at the old Isaac 
D. Baldwin Ford. I was riding at the time that spirited 
black horse, "old Sam" which was the best horse I ever 

36 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

owned, and I think the best horse for everything a 
horse is used for which was ever produced in Clinton 
County. He lived to the great age of 34 years, and then 
was shot as a merciful ending of his useful life. 

When I came to the north bank of the creek and 
started down, about half way to the water at once Sam 
stopped short, gave a snort, whirling around so suddenly 
that I came near being unbalanced and thrown off. I 
reined him up as quickly as I could, and looked in the 
direction of the crossing to ascertain what had scared 
Sam so badly. The horse still violently trembled with 
fright so it was about all I could do to hold him. 

Just a yard or so above where the road came down 
into the creek from the south side, in a little bunch of 
willow bushes, I saw a strange looking little animal 
which I took to be a large fist dog, but still the little vil- 
lainous looking thing didn't look much like a dog. It 
had such fearfully bright, wild looking eyes, and sharp 
ears sticking straight up with their tips turned down. 
The horse was so badly frightened I hardly knew what 
to think of the "varmint," especially when I called "dog," 
then yelled at the top of my voice calling and sicking 
dog. There the little villain sat still staring me in the 
face, so I concluded to make a charge on him, if I pos- 
sibly could get Sam to face him on a charge. 

Going to the top of the bank, I reined up my charger. 
I put spurs to Sam whooping and yelling like a Com- 
anche Indian. I bore down on him, waiving my hat. 
All this noise didn't seem to disconcert him a bit. 
However, he trotted, or kind of jumped, along up on 
top of a high knoll, or end of a little ridge, and there 
he sat, for all the yelling I could do. I left him there 
wondering whether he was a dog or wild animal. 

I rode on up to Mr. Henderson's and, seeing him at 
his barn, told him of what I'd seen down at the creek, 
and asked him if he had such looking dog. He said he 
had a small like dog, but nothing like the animal I had 
described. 

37 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



CHAPTER 15. 



CLINTON COUNTY'S HEAVY COURT. 

In the 1858 election, J. C. Scott, B. F. Willis and 
James R. Coffman, were elected Judges of Clinton 
County Court. This Court was designated, for many 
years after, as the Heavy Court, and justly so, their 
combined weight amounting to over 1000 lbs. No one 
of them weighed less than 300 lbs. One would readily 
believe this ponderous body would do things, and they 
did. 

As a monument to their memory, stands the two 
immense stone piers on which rests the big arch bridge 
spanning Shoal Creek, four miles south of Cameron. 
The original bridge was a heavy wooden Howe truss, 
the first of the kind in the County (as my memory goes). 
I think it was finished in the fall of 1860, and was dedi- 
cated by a big public dance. The writer was at that 
dance but took no part, as it seemed to him, it was only 
a harbinger of what was coming next season. Many of 
the young swains who "tripped the light fantastic toe" 
on the new floor of that bridge, now lie mouldering on 
some far ofT battle field in the sunny Southland. 

I'll try to call to mind a few whom, I remember, 
were there. Among many others, were Dr. and Mrs. 
King, and Allison Shanks, Mrs. King's brother, Hiram 
A. McCartney, Asher McCartney, Uncle Harry Parker, 
and daughters, Thomas P. Jones, who afterwards married 
Miss Nannie Parker, Preston Lindsay, who was a 
brother to the late Major Lindsay, whose father, Richard 
Lindsay, was commissioned by the court to overlook the 
building of the bridge. I am not certain, but think O. P. 
Newberry was there, Milton Wigginton, J. A. Calvert 
and many others, a majority of whom, had there been 
two flags there that day, as were a year later, would have 
enrolled under the Stars and Bars, in place of the Flag 
of our Union, as they did six months later, many of them 
to their sorrow. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

If there ever was a public structure in Missouri 
built and christened more devotedly to the "lost cause" 
than this was, I've not heard of it. Many of these gal- 
lant young bloods crossed that structure in a hurry, and 
for the last time, on a bright May morning six months 
later, to join their Confederates at Brooken School 
neighborhood, and that was a very unhealthy neighbor- 
hood, too, for them along about that time. They had 
waked up, by their overbearing attitude the Rogers, 
Major Green and many other Union men, who, by this 
time, were organized, so the hot bloods left in a hurry, 
many of them to return no more, and many a good, warm 
hearted boy went with that crowd south to fight for 
their rights, and not one in ten of them owned as much 
as the odor of a nigger. 

And this "Heavy Court" left a monument of stone, 
built with public money, a powder magazine which was 
standing a few years since (and probably is yet) be- 
tween the business center of Plattsburg and the railway 
depots, in the west part of town. The idea was to make 
Plattsburg a military storehouse for Confederate sup- 
plies. I suppose, taken altogether, the "Heavy Court" 
did as much good as harm. 

As a citizen. Judge Willis had the reputation of 
being an exemplary man. Judge Coffman lived at 
Haynesville, and I knew but little of him. I think he 
was one of the original owners of the town site of 
Haynesville. Judge Scott lived five miles south of our 
place, at the time of which I am writing. I heard him 
make a speech in Cameron in his campaign. He ex- 
claimed, "They even charge me of having religion." 
"My God," he apostrophized, "what would my Kentucky 
friends say if they would hear that accusation." His 
wife and daughter were Catholics. He justly claimed 
that fact was no bar, under our laws, to holding office. 
However, I thought that was all buncomb to pull the 
wool over some people's eyes. The fact was, he was the 
nominee of the fire eating wing of the slavery Demo- 
crats, and could have been elected in Clinton County 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

at that time as such, had he been a representative of 
Ghenghis Kahn or Adbel Alcader. However, this pon- 
derous Judge had a gleam of poetry, or romance, in his 
make up, and must some time, in early life, have read 
"The Lady of the Lake" ; they named their boy, "Walter 
Scott". It might have been at Mrs. Scott's suggestion. 

And now I've come to the last, the six foot tall, 
slender Miss Mariah Scott. She was not quite as tall as 
her father, nor did she have the ponderous avoirdupois 
of her worthy sire. She was the reigning belle of that 
bridge dance, and it looked awfully dangerous the way 
she slung herself and those young Confederates around 
on that high bridge that day. I suppose, however, she 
was only aiming to get the boys used to danger, and well 
she might. I can think of not more than one or two of 
those who went south in such a hurry that bright May 
morning who ever returned. Among those that went 
was Anderson Franklin, a good hearted fellow, who was 
a brother of Ben Franklin of Kansas City, who was a 
prominent lawyer for many years, and was, in President 
Cleveland's administration, appointed as Minister to one 
of the South American Republics, and later on. Governor 
of Arizona Territory. I have had recently a letter from 
one of his sons. 

However, this is only one among thousands of other 
like incidents in '61. 



CHAPTER 16. 



HOW A LYNX LOOKS. 

About 40 years ago, I was going for Dr. Scott, who 
lived five miles south of our place on a place now owned 
by Mr. John Estep. I went by the old Burkhart place 
and aimed to, and did finally, cross Shoal Creek just 
above where a tall steel bridge spans the stream one-half 
mile northwest of the Henderson farm, at the old Isaac 
D. Baldwin Ford. I was riding at the time that spirited 
black horse, "old Sam" which was the best horse I ever 

36 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS O N THE BORDER 

owned, and I think the best horse for everything a 
horse is used for which was ever produced in Clinton 
County. He lived to the great age of 34 years, and then 
was shot as a merciful ending of his useful life. 

When I came to the north bank of the creek and 
started down, about half way to the water at once Sam 
stopped short, gave a snort, whirling around so suddenly 
that I came near being unbalanced and thrown off. I 
reined him up as quickly as I could, and looked in the 
direction of the crossing to ascertain what had scared 
Sam so badly. The horse still violently trembled with 
fright so it was about all I could do to hold him. 

Just a yard or so above where the road came down 
into the creek from the south side, in a little bunch of 
willow bushes, I saw a strange looking little animal 
which I took to be a large fist dog, but still the little vil- 
lainous looking thing didn't look much like a dog. It 
had such fearfully bright, wild looking eyes, and sharp 
ears sticking straight up with their tips turned down. 
The horse was so badly frightened I hardly knew what 
to think of the "varmint," especially when I called "d^g." 
then yelled at the top of my voice calling and sicking 
dog. There the little villain sat still staring me in the 
face, so I concluded to make a charge on him, if I pos- 
sibly could get Sam to face him on a charge. 

Going to the top of the bank, I reined up my charger. 
I put spurs to Sam whooping and yelling like a Com- 
anche Indian. I bore down on him, waiving my hat. 
All this noise didn't seem to disconcert him a bit. 
However, he trotted, or kind of jumped, along up on 
top of a high knoll, or end of a little ridge, and there 
he sat, for all the yelling I could do. I left him there 
wondering whether he was a dog or wild animal. 

I rode on up to Mr. Henderson's and, seeing him at 
his barn, told him of what I'd seen down at the creek, 
and asked him if he had such looking dog. He said he 
had a small like dog, but nothing like the animal I had 
described. 



37 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

I studied about that vicious looking animal which 
scared Sam so badly a good deal, but later on the mys- 
tery was solved. Several other people had seen this 
strange customer; one of them was Davis Duncan, my 
neighbor, who went out one morning with a bridle to 
get a horse up which was running loose in the woods, 
as all stock did at that time. He was going along a 
path, he said, when at once a little dark colored animal 
reared up behind a little log not far ahead of him with 
such sparkling, wild looking eyes that it frightened him 
for an instant. He looked at it and it steadfastly gazed 
at him, and would not and did not, move, but he did. He 
said the little villain looked as though it had a notion 
of springing on to him, and he had nothing to defend 
himself with, but the bridle, or his hands. He told me 
he never would have said anything about the incident 
in the woods, had not the story I am telling been made 
public later on. 

Awhile after these occurrences, an uncle of mine, 
"Uncle Bill Williams," and John and Jos. Frederick and 
probably others, were out hunting. At that time there 
were a few deer left, and one could be scared up by dogs 
occasionally. These parties had along a lot of dogs, and 
were not a great distance from where Pleasant Grove 
Church and school house are now, which are about four 
miles west of the old Mormon town. Far West. After 
ranging around quite a while, the dogs struck a hot trail ; 
away they went, yelling, the men after them, when, sud- 
denly, they brought something to bay, and it appeared 
from the noise and yelling of the dogs that they were 
seemingly hurt. The men came up and saw some cat- 
like animal which would make a terrific spring at a dog 
and make him howl, by a stroke of his fish hook pointed 
claws. The men waited for a lull in the scrimmage when 
one of them shot and killed dead, a lynx, and the dogs 
skirmished around and routed another, the mate of the 
one already killed, and killed it also. 

These two are the only lynxes (family of cats, or 

38 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

panthers), which have been seen, or killed, that I know 
of since I've been in the county. 

In this connecti'on, I further add that I learned 
something about the habits of the lynx about 25 years 
ago from my Uncle Charles Williams, while in Oregon 
visiting with him at his mountain cabin in the foot-hills 
of the Santiam river country. He was a backwoodsman 
for many years in the vast fir and cedar forests of the 
foothill country of the east side of the Williamette Val- 
ley, and had a great deal of experience with the wild 
animals, natives of that vast timbered waste. 

He said the lynx would skulk along on the trail of a 
man hunter or trapper, for half a day at a time, and no 
one knew why. They did it more out of their curiosity as 
they had never been known to spring on to any man. 
He thought probably they followed for the offal of deer, 
or other game killed by the hunters, and trappers, said 
he had killed many a one of the little villains when he 
found they were on his trail, which was detected by 
hiding behind the immense fir logs lying in every direc- 
tion in those big woods. They'd rear up behind those 
logs to look at him; he'd lie still and they'd keep coming 
closer until they'd get near enough, then he'd shoot them 
in the head when they reared it above the log they were 

behind. 

One who has never seen those big trees and logs 
will hardly believe it, when told that one could not walk 
five miles in that big woods in a day to save his life, if 
he had to follow a certain point of the compass. I re- 
member remarking, while on the ship going up the Col- 
umbia river and seeing the great fir forest, that I'd like 
to be out there and take a tramp of a few miles. A man 
standing by said, "Did you ever try that feat?" I said 
"No. but intend to when I get up in the Willamette Val- 
ley." He said, "You'll know more after you try it. I'll 
tell you that you can't walk five miles in a straight line 
in a day for your life." I did know more, and found 

39 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

where there were no paths cut, and logs burned out of 
the path, I couldn't walk half of five miles. 

Lots of those old logs are more than 100 feet long 
and so big, to get on ■one of them, one has to go nearly 
to their top, which is generally broken off and from two 
to three feet high at the little end, with sometimes two 
or three others just as big ones piled across the one 
you are trying to get across, and the whole covered with 
a dense growth of vine raspberry with vines 20 to 40 
feet long, and a perfect mat, in many instances hiding 
the log and ground, and if you see a little open place 
with no logs or trees covered with those vines, try to go 
across it and you'll likely go in a hole up to your neck, 
where some old stump has been burned, and frequently 
a great hole like a caved-in cellar is run into covered with 
the raspberry vines, and those vines have the finest little 
berries imaginable. These big, cellar-like holes are 
where, one day long past, a big tree has toppled over 
with its great, wide spread roots, which ran out from 
the stump in all directions and carried the dirt with 
them, which the rains of winter wash gradually off, and 
they are either burned, or decay with the log, and the 
dirt lies piled up by the side of the hole like it had been 
shoveled out. 

I've seen those big roots on recently toppled over 
fir trees, which lay up on their edges fully 25 feet to the 
top edge. It is almost useless for one to tell people, 
who have never been in those great fir and redwood 
forests of the Pacific Coast how they look. Plenty of 
those millions of decaying old logs would have made 
20,000 feet of clear lumber, and are as useless as are the 
millions of gold coin in the bottom of the ocean. 



CHAPTER 17. 



STEEL PLOW FACTORIES IN ST. JOSEPH. 
It seems a little strange that there were two, well 
equipped (for that day), steel plow factories in the bust- 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

ling little city of St. Joseph, sixty years ago. The style 
of one was. Carter & Thomas, the other, Aquail J. Mor- 
row. They both made the newly invented Peoria 
pattern of all steel plows. While the mold boards were 
not of 3-ply, rolled together steel, as at present, to my 
notion they were better, but would not scour in a good 
many gravelly soils. I've done as good work with one 
of those A. J. Morrow Peoria plows as I've ever done 
with any of the more modern makes. 

In the spring, I think it was of 1852, Mr. John Snow, 
and Mr. John Pawley had ordered two 18-inch plows 
with the long steel mold boards and long, big, wooden 
beams, which were used in breaking the very tough 
prairie sod at that time. It took from four to six yoke 
of oxen to draw one of these big plows through the 
prairie sod, and one could hear the cracking noise of 
shoestring roots (there is nothing now left of that shoe- 
string weed, or plant since the prairie sod has disap- 
peared). 

Messrs. Pawley and Snow hired me and Mr. Simon 
Kariker, an uncle of Wallace Kariker, to take my team 
and go for the plows. It was about the first of May 
and a very wet spring, creeks up bank full a good part 
of the time, with very few bridges on the smaller creeks. 
It commenced to rain on us about the time we struck the 
Castile creek timber at Mr. Pickett's place, about a mile 
east of where Stewartsville is now. We stopped awhile 
in a shed at Pickett's, and when it slacked a little, we 
struck out. Soon it commenced to rain again, but we 
drove on crossing Castile and little Third Fork a mile 
or so beyond. It still rained and we were dripping wet, 
but some good people took us in for the night. 

Having gotten dry and being rested, with a good 
warm breakfast, we started for St. Joseph. On driving 
down to a little, but very long, creek, called Muddy, we 
found it bank full, so we had to drive five miles out of 
our way to a shaky, wooden bridge, and we didn't reach 
St. Joseph that evening, staying not far from where 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

Saxton is now. Next morning we got to the city about 
ten o'clock, and loaded the two big plows with beams 
as long as our little, old wagon box, and the inevitable 
salt; two sacks salt was always one of the things which 
had to come, it mattered not what else was left, when a 
wagon went to any Missouri river town before railway 
days. 

We got off about noon and got out across that muddy 
creek which had given us so much trouble on the trip 
out. We stayed the second night with the same people 
who had kept us as we went in. 

It looked ominous the next morning, and we hurried 
to the Third Fork to cross on an old shaky bridge. After 
crossing it, it began to rain again, so we took out the 
hind gate of the wagon to cover the precious cargo of 
salt, and drove wearily on. However, we'd gotten 
"kinder" used to it. We had to go down south out of 
the way several miles to a bridge on little Third Fork. 
When we came near to it, we found the bottom nearly 
covered with water. I didn't like the appearance of the 
depth indicated by the brush and bushes in what looked 
like a slough between us and the bridge. I told my part- 
ner I was not going into that ugly looking current until 
I had tested its depth. So we unhitched the horses and 
took the harness off of one that I knew was a good swim- 
mer, and I took some of my own harness and shoes off 
also. 

I bounced the horse and put in to that muddy, ugly 
looking slough, and had not gone ten yards till the horse 
floated off and swam across the slough, the swimming 
water being some 20 yards wide, by the look of the un- 
dergrowth in the open timber. I finally found a way 
where the water did not come up to our salt, and hitched 
up and drove down by the trees that I spotted as marks 
of safety, and finally crossed without further risk, and 
we drove on through mud and water to Mr. Clark's, who 
then lived not far from a new wooden bridge across 
Castile Creek, near where Stewartsville now is. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

It rained nearly all night, and the next morning was 
Sunday. It quit raining about 8 o'clock. The new 
bridge had no approaches and was about five feet high 
square up to the floor. Mr. Clark kindly went down 
with us to the creek, and found it bank full. Clark said 
it was out of the question to try to get on to the bridge 
I took a look at the surroundings, and decided to take the 
wagon to pieces and carry it across piece by piece, which 
we did, and put it together on the east side of the bridge. 
Carrying the wagon box over was a job to get it up on 
and down off, then on to the running gear of the wagon, 
then those big plows and heavy salt sacks, then the har- 
ness. 

The road ran into the creek above, and came out 
below the bridge. Kariker and I bounced on to the 
horses, I leading, into the foaming current under the 
bridge, like a dart and luckily, hit the landing place all 
right. I neglected to mention that we didn't have many 
clothes on when we went under that bridge. 

We dragged along all day heading the little creeks 
and branches, having to leave the wagon trail and go 
out on the prairie into soft, slushy gopher hills, the horses 
sinking to their fetlocks at every step, and the wagon 
cutting through the soft sod. We, at last, after five days 
of rain and drudgery, got home, and I think I got six 
dollars for my services with team and wagon. 

The first job that Mr. Snow did with that big prairie 
breaking plow was for Mr. William Henry, a few miles 
north of the present site of Cameron, and I'll venture to 
guess, Judge Henry will remember it, as well as he does 
the dance at Mike Moore's in war time. 



CHAPTER 18. 



O. H. P. NEWBERRY. 
The first time I remember seeing the late Major 
Newberry was at a little Fourth of July picnic, held in a 
grove on the place later owned and improved by the late 



43 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

Hiram Gorrell, one mile north of my home, Midway 
Place, He had the beautiful young Lizzie McCorkle in 
his charge that day, and later on married her. She is 
living yet and is one of three who were here when I first 
came to the county v/ith my parents seventy years since. 
Major Nev/berry first came here with the corps of engi- 
neers and helped in all the surveying details while the 
Hannibal & St. Joseph Ry. was being constructed. He 
was generous to a fault. I remember. At that little 
picnic he had lots of good things to eat including a basket 
of champagne of which he invited everybody to partake. 

Among other accomplishments he was a fairly good 
lawyer in Com^mon Law, but never to my knowledge 
practiced much in the courts. He v/as patriotic, and 
when the great Civil War broke out he volunteered, and 
was with Col. Mulligan while he was beleaguered and 
siiiTcmnded by the overwhelming force of General Price 
at Lexington, Mo., and was there credited with a heroic 
deed that should go down to coming generations. The 
siege was being pushed by the Confederates, wbo rolled 
lines of hemp bales, which were shot-proof for any guns 
that Mulligan had within his entrenched camp. These 
bales they would roll in unison, forming a good movable 
breast work and when near enough would throw hand 
grenade shells with burning fuse over into the Union 
ranks. 

On one occasion a loaded bomb came over the earth 
works with burning fuse fizzing, and fell among the sol- 
diers lying in the trenches. Quick as thought the brave 
Newberry grabbed the death dealing missile and hurled 
it back over both breast works, where it burst over the 
heads of those who sent it. 

I think this heroic act worthy to go down to genera- 
tions yet unborn side by side with that of Sergeant 
Jasper at historic Fort Moultry. 

Major Nev/berry was a near relative of Postmaster 
Newberry of Chicago, under Mr. Cleveland's administra- 
tion, who was founder of the great Newberry Library 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

in that great city, and who at his death left a large legacy 
to the heirs of the Major, including his wife and her 
children, one of whom was the wife of the late Frank 
Darby, father of the genial Walter, ■of the Darby Auto- 
mobile Co. No nicer or more accommodating young 
business man in Cameron than Walter Darby to whom 
I am under obligations for past favors. 

JAMES WILLIAMS. 



CHAPTER 19. 



PRICE HARLAN. 

While W. P. Harlan was not among the first settlers 
of Shoal Township, he was nevertheless here in a very 
early day. Having settled on the place adjoining my 
home, Midway Place, in the year of 1840, and lived there 
until his death, about 30 years since. I was intimately 
acquainted with him as he was our nearest neighbor for 
many years. 

Price Harlan was a man of strong convictions and 
sterling integrity. No one was ever asked to vouch for 
what he said he knew to be a fact, or for what he agreed 
to do. He was always on the side of the weak and poor 
and was not afraid to say so. 

He was the best farmer in the neighborhood while 
he was young and could do his own work. Having 
raised a large family of girls in later years, I've heard 
him complain that his hired men had allowed cockle- 
burrs to get started on his farm. He always kept a 
flock of sheep and was always a deadly enemy of cockle 
burrs and mongrel yellow dogs. 

Price Harlan was the first Woman Suffragist that I 
can remember of, having always claimed that my mother, 
a widow who had children to educate, should have a 
right to vote at our school meetings. He helped to build 
the first public school house in the township and I think 
about the first in Clinton County. He was the most ex- 
pert man with a common chopping axe that I ever knew. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

Wc thought if we could do anything as well as Uncle 
Price that was good enough. He could run a corn row 
furrow with a single horse and a single line across a 
forty acre field, that I verily believe a line stretched taut 
would center the furrow its entire length. I covered 
corn, with a hoe three days after him when I was 17 
years old for 25 cents a day. I promised myself after 
that experience that I'd never hire out again and I've 
kept that promise. Another boy and I had covered about 
10 acres each day and our hands were blistered by the 
time we had finished the job. 

In a very early day Mr. Harlan donated a tract of 
land for a public cemetery, and within the last decade 
one of his daughters, Mrs. Frances Park, has added 
another acre to her father's gift and this cemetery now 
is known as the W. P. Harlan Cemetery in which I ex- 
pect before long will be my final resting place. Mr. 
Harlan helped bury the first person in this grave yard 
and probably more of his neighbors than any one v/ill 
gratuitously. 

By frugality, industry and perseverance Mr. Harlan 
accumulated what would these days be quite a little 
fortune as it goes with farmers. 

I might write a quire of paper and not begin to 
enumerate his many good traits. If he had bad traits 
they were few and harmless and wc will let them rest in 
oblivion. He was a consistent member of the Baptist 
church for many years prior to his death. To sum up I 
think this neighborhood is better by the example set by 
Price Harlan. 

James Williams. 
Mid-way Place, Sept. 5th, '11. 

HOW DREAR TO THIS HEART. 

How drear to this heart are some scenes of my childhood, 
When dim recollection brings them to view; 
No orchard, no meadow, but prairie and wildwood, 
And hunting and fishing we all liked to do. 

40 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



The y,oo<\ houHCwives winhiriK for winter renerven, 
Uttcd K.r'''P<^". I'li'mn .iiul (r.'ib ;ii)j>lc;i lor honey jjrcBcrvcH, 
With plenty of tahhaKc and alfio potatoes, 
•They ntewed up in honey lots of tomatoes. 

Having no place these Kood thin^n to atore, 
They'd di^ a deep hole under the floor; 
Under the bed they'd have n trap door; 
A nmall hoy they'd send down in this hole 
Of African darkness (a terror to hia soul). 

He didn't like to y,n; mamma Haid he must; 
On coming 'o the liK^t waH covered with dust; 
He didn't like often to perform this feat, 
But alwayH brought up yjjod thin^H to eat. 

YourH truly, 
James Williams, Dec. 25, 1911. 
•I^ruit jari had not been invented then. 



CHAPTER 20. 



GOING TO MILL SIXTY-THREE YEARS AGO. 

Every old settler knows it was a job to get wheat 
ready for the mill, but it was a bij^ger job to get it made 
into flour fit for bread. Just imagine, my young farmer 
friends, plowing your ground with a wooden mould 
board plow that would no more scour than a black oak 
log dragged down the road, then sowing seed by hand 
and covering with wooden tooth harrow, or dragging a 
big crab apple brush to cover it in the dry clods, and 
leaving it for rain and the virgin soil to do the rest, and 
if it rained, we usually got some wheat; if we had snow, 
when the grain began to get in a stiff dough, we'd cut it 
by hand with a grain cradle. I've cut many an acre of 
wheat and oats and bound it by hand. My, how sore 
our hands would get binding bearded wheat. We'd then 
■tack in a circle so we could put it on the ground in a 
circle and put horses on it and ride them around in a 
circle on it. We called this operation tramping out 
wheat. 

We kept stirring and turning the straw until about 

47 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

two-thirds of the wheat was on the ground. Some few 
had plank put down, but those plank floors were few 
and far between. We would use wooden forks and 
home made clumsy hand rakes to get as much of the 
straw out as possible. Then, we'd rake it in a big pile, 
chaff and wheat, and use an old clumsy wheat fan to clean 
it. When ready for the mill, it usually had about five per 
cent, or more, of grit, sand and dirt in it, and our little, 
old horse power mill, having no smut or other cleaning 
machinery, one can imagine how the flour looked when 
baked in bread. It was a fearful thing on teeth with all 
that sand in it, but it was a ground hog case; we had to 
eat it. 

In those old sweep power horse mills, we'd use two 
or four horses, and grind about six bushels with two, or 
ten to twelve bushels with four horses in eight to ten 
hours. We didn't bolt it at same operation of grinding. 
We took it up in a measure of some kind, carried it up 
a split pole ladder with round rungs for steps, put it on 
top in a big box that they called a "bolting 'chist* ", 
which was 10 to 16 feet long, with a nicely made reel 
covered with fine silken gauze first two-thirds of its 
length, and a coarser cloth for shorts, the bran coming 
out at open back end of bolt. I think that all modern 
bolting machinery of the present day, is made on about 
the same principle of those old time bolting reels turned 
by hand with a crank. A knocking device was attached 
to jar the flour and keep it from clogging the bolting 
cloth. 

We had some wheat the year my father died. We 
took a little more pains in keeping the grit and dirt out 
of it than usual. I wanted a little better flour than we 
could get on the old horse mills with hand bolting ma- 
chinery. To get this better grade of flour, we had to go 
♦o Platte River in Platte County, about fifteen miles 
west of Plattsburg, nearly thirty miles from home, a hard 
day's drive in short winter days. I think, a Kentucky 
man by the name of James Estill, and his partner, whose 
name was, I believe, Mr. Bates, had built a good modern 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

equipped (for that day) water power saw and grist, corn 
and wheat burrs, with all the machinery and ample 
power to drive it a good portion of the year. This mill 
made flour at that early day that I think was better than 
our modern roller flour. Their machinery would clean 
the grain of all impurities, and that was my reason for 
deciding to go there for our winter's "grinding", as we 
called it. 

So, about the middle of December, 1848, one very 
cold morning, I loaded 7 or 8 bushels of wheat, and about 
10 bushels of corn shelled by hand; we had never heard 
of a corn sheller, either hand or power. I took along 
feed for team and some cooked stuff to eat, and one or 
two old quilts to keep me from freezing, as it was quite 
cold that morning, and got colder and colder the whole 
day. I arrived at the mill about nightfall. It was an 
awful cold place to keep my horses tied to the v/agon; 
however, I did the best I could for them in finding a 
little shelter from the piercing cold northeast wind, and 
fed them a good feed of corn and sheaf oats, v/hich v/e 
used in place of hay, and it was a good substitute, too. 
I went in, after getting my grain in the mill, to a fire 
in the corn mill house with loose 6 inch boards for floor, 
and about 8 or 10 feet above the icy cold water. That 
little stove had about as much effect on warming that 
good, big, open room as an Owl cigar of this day would 
have on a good, big bed room on a cold night. 

I had some frozen corn bread and hog meat, and 
made a little black coffee, but couldn't get the stuff hot 
enough to more than thaw half v/aj' through till I com- 
menced eating, as I had not eaten much of the frozen 
meat and bread on the cold prairie. It v/as about all I 
could do to drive the team and keep from freezing. I had 
no overshoes, but had on a pair of very tight fitting 
boots, the best things on earth to freeze one's feet in, 
and they and that zero weather did the business for mine 
on that trip; they are paining me now, this sixty-three 
years after. 

My gentle readers, allow me to pause and tell you a 

49 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

tragic story. Mr. James Estill, the owner of the mill (as 
I was told within the last two years by a very old man 
who lived near Westport then, but lived in the neighbor- 
hood of Estill's Mills, at the time of which I am writing, 
and for many years, called the Union Mills, had some 
difficulty (as I understood my Westport informant) with 
his partner, and they finally agreed to fight it out on the 
"Field of Honor", agreeing that a negro man should im- 
partially load the guns, they casting lots for choice of 
guns. As I understood it, that negro was the only wit- 
ness to the tragedy, however, I am not certain about this. 
At any rate, they met and Estill killed his opponent, 
as I, and everybody at that time knew. I remember that 
the public censured Mr. Estill, whether justly so or not. 
The Estill Flats, I was told by my informant, which are 
located just west of the new Coates House in Kansas 
City, were built by a brother of James Estill, owner of 
the big mill on Platte River. 

The negro, who I was told loaded the guns, was 
miller in the corn mill. He had a cot and offered to' 
share it with me that awful night telling me I'd freeze if 
I tried to sleep on that cold floor, and I would have 
frozen; that night is the only one of my life I ever slept 
with a nigger. I bless him to this day. 

An old acquaintance and friend of my parents, whom 
I knew quite well, whose name was Joshua DeHart, who 
at that time, I think, lived in De Kalb County near old 
Victoria over the line in Daviess County, was at the 
mill that cold night and helped me, as I was a boy then, 
to take care of my team. The millers ground our grists 
that night. Practical millers say that water has m_ore 
power in night than daytime. Mr. DeHart had a cold 
from sleeping that night on that cold floor. He did not 
sleep much, he said, so was up long before day looking 
after our teams; he fed mine as well. Coming into the 
mill, he told us a fearful snow storm v/as raging outside, 
which was true. In the 75 years I've lived in Western 
Missouri, I've not seen any deeper one, and never saw 
one that lay as long without thawing. My feet are sore 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

to this day from freezing that terrible winter. One thing 
made it appear so awfully cold was, we were so illy pre- 
pared to withstand the cold. 

After a warm breakfast of black coffee, fried pork 
and warmed over bread, loading our grists, we (Mr. De- 
Hart and I) started home as daylight appeared in the 
eastern horizon. The snow came down at a fearful rate, 
and from the northeast right in our faces. Dragging 
along, we arrived at Plattsburg about 1 P. M. and 
stopped to feed, but our wagon boxes were full of snow, 
so we shoveled it out as best we could and fed our horses 
the little feed left. Made a little coffee, got some bread 
and ate a lunch dinner. After probably an hour, we 
started for home. The snow had gotten so deep, and 
our wagons loaded with our grists and full of snow be- 
sides, we made very slow progress. 

The storm slacked late in the day, the clouds break- 
ing away and the wind veering to northwest and it bid 
fair to be a very cold night. Our teams were very tired. 
We arrived at Brother John Stone's, a church brother of 
Mr. De Hart's and a good friend of mother's, my father 
having bought of him the timbered tract on which 
William's Creek Bridge now stands, several years before. 
Mr. DeHart said he was going to stay over night with 
Bro. John Stone as he could not make the long distance 
to his home. I said I had to go home as mother and the 
little girls would freeze. We lived in a double log house 
with big, wide fireplaces, and no one to cut wood but a 
10 year old boy. 

Bro. Stone and DeHart protested that I'd freeze if I 
started across the trackless prairie that awful night. I 
persisted, but one of them commenced unhitching my 
team, the other telling me to get out of the wagon and 
they'd take care of the horses. They knew more than I 
did, I was then so cold and stiff that I would have frozen 
then and there had they not helped me out of the wagon 
and into the house. Had they let me start across that 
prairie that evening, I'd not now be writing this story. 

The sun came out next morning bright, but it was 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

intensely cold. I started for home, but had only land 
marks to guide me, as not a trace of the road was to be 
seen for the deep and drifting snow. I finally got home 
about 1 P. M. to find an almost frenzied mother. She 
lay awake all that fearful night thinking I was freezing 
to death in those snow drifts on the trackless prairie, 
which is now the beautiful Keystone neighborhood; it 
is now sixty-three years since I made that trip to Estill's 
Mills. 



CHAPTER 21. 



THE EARLY DAY HARD SHELL BAPTIST 
PREACHER. 

I must confess I should approach this subject a little 
gingerly as it comes pretty close to home. Being born 
of Baptist parentage, of course, I heard in my earliest 
childhood their opinion of the Calvinistic theory of Pre- 
destination, Foreordination from the foundation of the 
world, and of infants being in torment not a span long, 
and all that kind of rot, calculated to drive a child away 
from the fountain of good. I am writing now of recol- 
lections and impressions made on my childhood memory 
nearly 75 years ago in Van Buren (now Cass) County. 

Some years ago I ran on to a book, whose title was, 
"Rural Rhymes, Talks and Tales of Olden Times", by 
Martin L. Rice of Lone Jack, Jackson County, Mo., the 
recognized Poet Laureate of Jackson County for many 
years, who died only a few years ago at a great age. 

I will digress by saying when quite a small child, 
before coming to Clinton County, I knew quite well a 
brother of the poet, Mr. David Rice, v/ho was a clerk in 
the first store in old Pleasant Hill, owned by W. W. 
Wright, and have in my possession many receipted bills 
for goods bought of him 75 years ago. David Rice 
married a lady whose maiden name was (I think). 
Farmer, a kinswoman to the pretty little Lottie Farmer, 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

several times mentioned in these memoirs. David went 
to California in the great exodus of 49 and 50, and died 
on the plains, I think, as did hundreds of others, includ- 
ing one of my father's brothers and his wife, who were 
buried in one lonely grave, to be scratched up by raven- 
ous wolves and their bodies devoured. 

There was, at that time, another young man living 
in the neighborhood whose name was Willy Bayley, who 
married Miss Nancy Wilson, a daughter of the good 
Indian contractor mentioned in my Shawnee Mission 
chapter. Miss Wilson was a cousin of the writer. She 
died a few years after her marriage with Mr. Bayley. 
As they were all old Tennessee stock, it was not strange 
that Mr. Bayley should select the young widow of the 
dead David Rice for his life partner, and they both lived 
in Pleasant Hill for many years, he dying a few years 
since at a great age. I do not know whether Mrs. Bay- 
ley is yet living. I visited them a few years ago and had 
quite a long talk with them about the poet, and first sur- 
veyor of Cass County. It was Martin L. Rice, who sur- 
veyed the original town plat of Harrisonville, Mo, In 
his "Talks and Tales", Mr. Rice mentions, among many 
others, a Hard Shell Baptist preacher, who was on his 
way to the Little Blue country to hold a meeting at Bro. 
Fitzhugh's, when Rice's friend, the Hoosier pilgrim to 
Westport, fell in with, and accompanied the preacher to 
Brother Fitzhugh's. This trip must have been made 
nearly seventy-five years ago, and that being the case, 
the writer was living within one mile of Pleasant Hill 
at the time, but a very small child; however, I can re- 
member some things which occurred that far l^ack. It 
may seem a little strange that I knew, small as I was, 
this same Hard Shell preacher, as well as Bro. Fitz- 
hugh, who was my father's guest many a time at their 
big meetings. The Hard Shell's name was James Sav- 
age, one of whose brothers, Hiram Savage, had married 
my father's sister, Polly Williams. They moved to 
Dallas, Texas, many years since, and one of my father's 
brothers, James Williams (the one for whom I am 

53 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

named), married the Hard Shell's sister, Polly Savage, 
one among the best women I ever knew ; she died near 
Scio, Oregon, some years ago at a great age. 

As to the doctrines those old Hard Shells promul- 
gated at that time, I was too young to know anything 
about, only as I heard them talk. When we got over on 
the north side of the river, I found lots of Hard Shells 
here, too. My father could not swallow predestination 
and other dogmas proclaimed from Hard Shell pulpits, 
so he allied himself with the branch of the Baptist people 
called Missionary, endorsing the poem, — "From Green- 
land's Icy Mountains." 

Much as I had heard about Hard Shell's preaching, 
I had never heard one preach, after I could understand 
anything, about the doctrine of predestination until I 
was a grown-up man, so, one fine Sunday morning, 
knowing that a very prominent man of that day holding 
to the faith of Calvin, would preach down the creek east 
of us a few miles (somehow I used to like to go down 
east of Sundays thinking I might see some one whom I 
thought just right at the meeting). Away I went, getting 
a good position on the porch of the private house where 
the preaching was to be held. 

Finally the preacher arrived. He was a tall, portly 
gentleman, with rather florid face, indicating, as I 
thought, his nativity. After some rather sonorous,, back- 
woods drawling (I believe they called it singing), he 
opened his discourse with their stereotyped text, "No one 
can come unto me except the Father who sent me, draw 
him." I am not sure I've quoted this passage of Scrip- 
ture correctly, however, I think I've given the sense, if 
not the precise words. So our old sentinel on the walls 
of Zion, floundered along quoting passage after passage 
which were not apropos to the subject, as I looked at 
them with what little attention I did pay to them (my 
best girl, I think, was not there), and it was all I could 
do to keep from going to sleep. 

After his pounding away for about an hour or more, 
(I was not the only sleepy one in that crowd) intimating 

54 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

to sinners they ought to be Christians, but at the same 
time he more than hinted that if they were not of the 
"elect" they would be damned if they, did, or if they 
didn't. 

And this was the last time I ever gave a Hard Shell 
Baptist an opportunity to inflict eternal damnation on 
me, whether I would or would not. From what I knew 
of the antecedents of this, as well as some other old Hard 
Shells of that day, I concluded he was a better exponent 
of the market value of niggers, mules, tobacco and 
whiskey (especially the home market for some of these 
chattels) than of the glad tidings of a crucified Redeemer, 
and the sequel proved the correctness of my observations. 

I've not heard a Hard Shell sermon since. 



CHAPTER 22. 



SHIPPING STOCK FIFTY-TWO YEARS AGO. 

It might interest some of the old timers in the stock 
shipping trade to recount the many difficulties and draw- 
backs shippers had to encounter fifty years ago. 

To commence with, there was very little cash capi- 
tal in this part of the state, either in banks or private 
hands. I remember, as I have said once before in this 
work, that many of the early local shippers bought their 
shipments (their little funds, most of it, being tied up in 
land and feeding), on credit till the shipper returned, 
and the currency we brought back would have put to 
shame Jacob's herd of cattle on his ranch in Palestine 
before he and his grandfather, Abraham & Lot, dis- 
solved partnership. Many colors would be a very tame 
description of how it looked; in fact, I couldn't tell the 
good from the bad, the spurious from the genuine, and 
even the genuine was based mostly on hot winded prom- 
ises to pay of some far off concern, whose circulation 
was based on somebody else's promise to pay. This was 
just the kind of currency the contractors of the Hannibal 

55 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

& St. Joseph Ry. had to take the pay out for labor and 
material in building this, the pioneer railway in the West. 
So that this, with the little gold and silver the Govern- 
ment paid out for supplies on the border, was our entire 
circulating medium, and the paper shin plaster circu- 
lated, and the gold and silver, in most cases, stayed in 
bank vaults, in case values had to be moved suddenly. 
I well remember when I first shipped stock to Chicago. 
I always sold them myself, face to face with Nelson Mor- 
ris, Myers, Tilden and many other New York and Pitts- 
burgh buyers at the old Lake Shore Stock Yards, which 
were located on the Lake shore somewhere in the vicinity 
of 16th to 20th streets. We, after selling, always sub- 
mitted our currency, as it was called (a great misnomer), 
to Mr. Steven B. Roath, the general live stock freight 
collector for all the railways at the Yards, who was, at 
that time, considered the best judge of "wild cat cur- 
rency" in the City of Chicago. If Steven O. K'd. a pack- 
age, we pocketed it and released the stock to the buyer. 

I can also remember that bright Irish woman, who 
was the housekeeper and matron manager of the culi- 
nary department of the old Lake Shore hotel, which was 
run by the late John B. Sherman, who later, and for 
many years until his death some years since, managed 
the big Transit House at the great Union Stock Yards, 
established, I think in the year 1865. I've just today, 
Jan. 8th, 1912, received the Kansas City paper of Jan. 
6th announcing the destruction by fire of the great, well 
known Transit House, where I've eaten many a good 
meal. 

The good Irish matron followed up the Stock Yards 
and John B. Sherman and stayed with them to the end 
of her life, as I learned from the Drovers' Journal at 
the time it occurred a good many years ago. When I 
first went to Chicago with stock, there was slough grass 
growing where the Transit House was burned on Jan. 
6th. 

Mr. Solomon Musser, of Cameron, Mo., drove over- 
land 200 steers from Cameron to Chicago in 1855 or '56, 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

driving them all the way, and crossing them at Clinton, 
Iowa. They grazed all the way, and his hands herded 
them where the stock yards are now located and in the 
vicinity. When the market would be a little bare and 
then spring up a little, he'd cut out a few of the best 
and drive down to one of the three yards, viz ; Lake 
Shore, Pittsburg and Ft. Wayne, or Michigan Central, 
and later (war times) Cottage Grove Yards, and sell the 
cattle himself. This, of course, was a long time before 
the Live Stock Commission firms had offices at the 
Yards, and in like manner nearly every shipper did the 
same thing until the great Union Stock Yards were 
opened in 1865 or '66, from which time on, very little 
selling has been done by the owners of stock. Cattle 
feeders, hov/ever, frequently buy their feeding cattle, 
but there is a question whether, in the long run, they gain 
much, especially if their time is limited, and the class of 
stock they are wanting happens to be scarce on the mar- 
ket at the time they are on the market wanting to pur- 
chase. 

In the selling of cattle, I've found out by more than 
50 years' experience, that a feeder from his feed lot 
doesn't know when he has the best buyer in the Yards 
nibbling at his stock. Commission salesmen trading 
with the buyers frequently hunt them up on a bad mar- 
ket, and if they make a reasonably fair offer for the stock, 
don't let them get away without a hard struggle to sell, 
and usually succeed. 



CHAPTER 23. 



WHY AND HOW CAMERON GOT THE NAME IT 

BEARS. 

Many years ago there lived in one of the central, (I 
think it was Howard), counties of this state a man whose 
name was Elisha Cameron. In the tide of emigration 
west, he moved to Clay County in a very early day. I 
get this history from my mother, who knew them before 

57 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

they moved to Clay County, and was a schoolmate of 
Mrs. McCorkle, who was a daughter of Mr. Cameron, 
and Mr. Samuel McCorkle's wife. Mr. Samuel McCorkle 
was a very old settler; was a native of Kentucky, born 
about 1797 and died about the biginning of the great 
war. Samuel McCorkle, E. M. Samuel and the Hannibal 
Railway Co. were partners in the original town plat of 
Cameron, and as a courtesy to Mr. McCorkle, allowed 
him to name it after his wife's father, Mr. Elisha Camer- 
on. Mr. McCorkle had a bearing orchard when I first 
was at his place 70 years ago, and used to give us boys, 
who were his frequent visitors, lots of good apples to 
eat and take home to mother, his wife's old schoolmate 
many years before. 

Mr. McCorkle was quite a good judge of fast horses 
and sometimes (not often) would back his judgment 
against such well known old sportsmen as old Dick 
Welden and Dave and Andy Hughes of Far West, and 
usually held his own. Old Dave Hughes then lived in 
the best house in Far V/est at that time. It had been the 
residence (in the palmy days) of Joseph Smith, the Mor- 
mon Prophet. Mr. McCorkle was generous to a fault to 
the very poor and died with many friends and not a 
known enemy. 

There is no question, but his two daughters, and 
Mrs. Louise Kariker, three miles south of town, are a 
great deal the longest residents anywhere near Cameron. 
His daughters, Mrs Elizabeth Newberry and Mrs. Susan 
Harris, have been mentioned several times in these 
memoirs, I've been acquainted with them 70 years. 



CHAPTER 24. 



A TRIBUTE TO D. WARD KING, OF MAITLAND, MO. 
"THE SPLIT LOG ROAD DRAG MAN." 

Come young and old, let us sing 
Of split log drags and D. Ward King, 
He's solved the question of heavy loads, 
Teaching us how to drag the roads. 

58 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



Conventions meet, pass resolutions with a jerk, 
Expecting the farmers to do all the work. 
I'll tell them now: better count the cost, 
Before they "reckon without their host." 

Relieve the farmer of part of his load. 
By hiring a man to drag the road; 
He'll make them better; I'll tell you why 
By dragging them well as they get dry. 

Now let me repeat to "Auto men," 

The farmer won't bear any further strain 

Endangering the lives of children and wives. 

Come out and help to give him heart; 

I'll go his bail, he'll do his part. 

Then drag the roads as slick as glass. 
Your big six motor will smoothly pass; 
A four seated car with seven piled in 
Will run so easy, 'twill make you grin. 

Better not work the roads at all 
Than plow them up late in the fall; 
But if good results you would bring, 
Do the work in the early spring. 

Let country and town join hands and sing, 

Of the "Good Roads" renown of D, Ward King. 

These lines, though lacking in rhythm, melody and 
meter, such as they are, are respectfully inscribed to the 
memory of D. Ward King of Maitland, Mo., the "Evan- 
gel of Good Roads." 

Midway Place, Route 1, Cameron Mo. 

Jan. 8th, 1912. 
James Williams. 



CHAPTER 25. 



PEDDLING CHICKENS TO FT. LEAVENWORTH 
57 YEARS AGO. 

In the spring and summer of 1855, my mother had 
raised a fine lot of nice chickens, Domineckers, we called 
them, with no home market only Plattsburg and Haynes- 
ville and three dozen chickens would have swamped both 

59 



SEV£NTY-FiV£ YEAR5 ON THE BORDER 

marlotta. Wc heard from our Mr. 7/iIliain 

Gilbert, f;5thfrr of iVLayor Gilbert - .^ -. Ciry, iCaa., a 

few y«tari %ince, that a ;?oo«l fprinjg chicken would sell 
for 25c tc» ofKceri an/i trAditrt at Port Leavenworth; 
Leavenworth City v/ax hardly known then. Weiton, on 
thw »i/de of the river at that time wa.t the largest to^>vn 
bet^^-cen Erun*wick and St, Jo«eph and waj about as 
good a town, but not aa large aji St. Jrie. 

So 7/e decided to rrtarket our chicken* at "The Fort." 
I made a .'iHttoiry coop abotxt 8 feet long and as wide as 
a wagon box, to fit in the bolster and hind stakes like a 
box on a y/agon, with bottom rail of 3z4 oak tcantling 
cro^<» piece* rriyvrti.».ed in to nail floor to, divided by r.v/o 
partitions for middle floors, m^kin^^ in all, three com^ 
psinmtntjt that held 12 tc» 15 dozen chickens nicely. I 
prtit 34 i«^-h pin* in botJr>m rail on front and rear, or 
hind bol.'tter, to keep this big coop from going for'/zard 
in going dov/n the long and very steep hilLs, At that 
time the roads were worked and graded very little. I 
ne'/er taw a road scraper for many years after that, and 
the first I saw v/as a ^.ast iron affair which nov/ v/ould 
hardly be considered good junk. We then had no brakes 
to our wagon, nothing but lock chains, which locked the 
wheel. We had tc» stjop, get off the wagon tr> lock and 
unlock. If the hill was n-r/t trjo bad, we'd hold back as 
long as posftible, and then gallop the team the balance 
of the hill, a very unsafe performance with that Shang- 
hai, 3-story, rickety chicken coop, which came very near 
being the cause of this book never being v/ritten. 

At any rate, I got the affair ready for the chickens, 
and we loaded it as full as we dared to, the v/eather be^ 
ing very warm and sultry, and away I went tc» nrarket 
sorcev/hat better pleased than v/e were v/hen v/e started 
t/y Mirabile with "ffemp and fcacon." I had a big mastiff 
dog and r didn't want him to go with me, but he follow- 
ed, and as he would not go back, so he v/ent along. 

ft t/>ok me twr^ days to reach the Fort and sell my 
chickens, I had the time of my life in keeping the 
soldiers from getting most of them. I found the dog a 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

good friend in need when a chicken would i^et away 
from me in taking it out of the coop. The soldiers around 
vTvuld go for it. but the big dog was too quick for them. 
They didn't dare oft'er any violence or they'd have gone 
to the Guard House instanter. They were pretty simooth. 
but the blue coats seven or eight years later could have 
taught them tricks of a disappearing chicken which 
would have astonished a Japanese juggler. 

One chicken got away from me, and away the old 
dog and snoldiers went after it. around and around the 
house and finally, a door being open, in the chicken 
went, and the big mastiff hard after it. and under a bed 
with the dog still after it, scaring some niggers nearly 
out of their wits; at any r.=ite. they ran out of the house 
into the street with eyes sticking out far enough to have 
been knocked off with a shingle. But the dog got the 
chicken just the same. tv» the disgust of the soldiers who 
were engaged in the chase. 

I soon sold all the chickens, but it was about night, 
so I went back ^ j mile on the Government Reservation 
in a secluded nook and camped for the night, feeling 
pretty safe \Knth my good friend, the big mastiff. 1 didn't 
start very early the next morning. 1 crossed the river 
on a little icvry at the FV^rt. and drove down to Weston, 
arriving about noon and put my horses in a stable and 
got my lunch at a restaurant. 1 had some goods to buy. 
In the meantime, it conimenced thundering, with 
dark clouds gathering m tb.e west. 1 bought a s,ick of 
salt, and as it had commenced to r.'tin, 1 bought little 
else thinking Td get them in Plattsburg after the rain. 

While in the store ^he big dog with me>. 1 n-iet old 
Mr. Archie, the father-in-law of Mr. Gilbert, nien 
tioned before. He put at me to go out hon^e with 
him .^nd stay over night, telling me how to find his 
place about T or ,^ miles out. By this time the rain was 
coming down in torrents: on its slacking up a little, he 
started home and I for my team. It was then nearly 
dark. I got the sack of s;^lt in the wagon, covering it 
with a wide seat board, and hitched up .^nd started with- 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

out thinking of my good dog, which I saw no more. 
Everybody had started home, I think my dog was 
locked in the back warehouse where we got the salt. 
That dog was really worth as much as that load of 
chickens. I didn't have him long and had never learned 
his worth until this trip. I felt pretty badly when I found 
he was not with me. 

I drove on quite slowly; the road was very slippery 
for a barefoot team, and it soon got as dark as Erebus, 
and the rain came down like a tropical torrent. When 
out a mile or so, on going down one of those long, steep 
ridges of Platte County, when about midway of the hill, 
I felt the big chicken coop wagon box sliding forward on 
to the horses. With no brakes, all I could do was to 
jump for life, as the heavy thing jammed against the 
horses, which were already nearly in a gallop goiiig down 
that long hill. Off I tumbled in the mud, rain and 
Egyptian darkness. With an occasional peal of thunder 
and flash of lightning, straining my eyes in the direction 
of the noise made by my team and wagon, I would catch 
a glimpse of them. I stood breathless, listening and 
straining my eyes, when at once there came an awful 
crash. I started down the road as well as I could see by 
the almost incessant lightning, when I ran onto a tall 
cornerstone marker in the middle of the road. It was at 
least three feet high, and my wagon had centered it and 
pushed it half over in the direction the team was going. 

The shock had knocked the big coop clear off of the 
running gear, turning it over in the road, the team taking 
the wagon on a little distance farther and finally, getting 
rid of it. By this time the rain had slacked up. I heard 
the chain harness up at one side of the road by a high rail 
fence, and watching when it lightened, I found the horses 
and took off the broken harness, got on one horse and led 
the other, covering my salt with the wide b'oard, and by 
inquiry at every house w^here I'd see a light, I finally got 
to Mr. Archie's quite late. This good man got a lantern 
and found one of my horses pretty badly hurt. He had 
a good liniment (which I am using to this day, never 

6S 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

having found any better) which he used on the horse. 
He went with me the next day (Sunday) taking one of 
his teams and wagon, and brought my wrecked wagon 
in. We doctored horses and wagon and harness all day, 
and next morning, stiff and sore as my team was, I 
started for home. This go'od man Archie would not 
think of charging me a cent for all his trouble and work, 
yet he was just the kind of man we called Rebels a few 
years later. 

Then, is it any wonder the Blue and the Gray have 
shaken hands across the "Bloody Chasm," and marched 
shoulder to shoulder up bloody San Juan Hill to the 
martial strains of "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean." 



CHAPTER 26. 



THE OLD SHAWNEE MISSION. 

The old Shawnee Mission buildings are located two 
or three miles out of Westport (Kansas City), to the 
southwest. I have never been right there at the old 
Mission, however, I've known of it since my very first 
memory, 73 or 74 years ago. The buildings stand, I am 
informed, about three-fourths mile south of Shawnee 
Place station on the Strang Electric line, between Kansas 
City and Olathe, Kas. My father helped his brother-in- 
law, Mr. Andrew Wilson (who then lived half a mile 
south of the present site of Pleasant Hill in Cass Co., 
Mo., and was a contractor with the U. S. Government) 
to furnish fat hogs to both the Harmony and Shawnee 
Missions to supply the friendly Indians, v/here, as my 
memory goes, both Catholic and Protestant missionaries 
vied with each other to advance these semi-civilized In- 
dians in the arts of peace and Christianity. 

Many a time I've heard my father tell mother, (when 
he had gotten back from one of those trips) of the Cath- 
olic services in those old buildings. I especially remem- 
ber one trip he made, when he attended the Easter ser- 
es 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

vices of the Catholic Mission. He thought it little less 
than desecration; not understanding, or realizing that 
the beautiful Easter services of the Catholic Church 
would (as it undoubtedly has) do more to attract and 
to some extent, civilize and Christianize the semi-bar- 
barous nations and tribes of savages of North America, 
than any other since the days of Whitfield. 

And, yet, without the wholesome fear of the uni- 
formed cavalry of the U. S. Government, these friendly 
Indians on our western borders could not have remained 
at peace with their white neighbors, some of whom were 
but little, if any better, in principle, than their savage 
neighbors. 

This man Wilson got a contract to furnish plows 
for the Missions and had the plows made at a primitive 
blacksmith shop run by a Mr. Frederick Farmer, an 
Uncle of the little sweetheart of Cousin Luke Williams 
(Lottie Farmer), with whom I had the spelling contest 
a good many years after for the little Bible. 

I can remember just how those primitive plows 
looked. The mold board was usually made of a very 
twisting walnut log cut in cross sections as long as the 
mold board was wanted. For sod breaking, it was near- 
ly twice as long as for old ground. The walnut timber 
being very hard, would sometimes scour a little in the 
exceedingly tough prairie sod, but not a bit in the old 
ground. We'd starve to death now if we had to use such 
implements as those. However, they were a step in ad- 
vance of the ancient method of plowing with the fork of 
a tree and crotch for the plow, and the other for the 
beam, with one handle in place of two. 

A somewhat strange coincidence, is having heard 
my father tell about what a fine country it was around 
those old Missions 70 years ago, and I am now owning 
some lands along the old Santa Fe Trail not a great 
distance from the old Missions. It may be a little bet- 
ter land, but I think it is not as nice as much of the lands 
in Clinton County. 

About 90 years ago, our Government sent to the 

64 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

border, Nathan Boone, one of the old Indian fighter's 
sons, rightly presuming that he knew better how to treat 
and manage Border Indians than any other man in the 
West (barring his father who was too old at that time). 
Many of Nathan Boone's descendants are still living six 
miles south of Westport, and were my neighbors while 
I stayed there a few years since. My mother knew 
Nathan Boone well. 



CHAPTER 27. 



SOME UNWRITTEN HISTORY. 

Knowing that these biographical sketches grow mo- 
notonous and are interesting only to people who are 
descendants of the particular biography of some of their 
forefathers, hence, I believe a short story of some of the 
unwritten history of soldier raids, escapades, skirmishes 
and o'iher incidents that came under the notice of the 
writer, who was more or less in camp and along w'lh 
»:he enrolled militia in several mititary excursion?, or 
raids, south and west of Cameron, would interest the 
younger generations, who have come on the stage of 
action since these tragic scenes have been nearly for- 
gotten. 

The first that I was with was just a day or two be- 
fore Col. Mulligan's surrender at Lexington. A battal- 
ion of the Iowa Second Regiment, I think it was, got oH, 
the cars at Cameron and marched across the country 
south to Liberty Landing to intercept a large force of 
Confederate recruits commanded by Col. Patten and 
Raines. As well as I now recollect, a call was made for 
mounted militia men (volunteers) to go to Platte River 
bridge (as we thought) to guard the railroad, wooden 
truss bridges at that time, which were very important 
from a military standpoint. Well, forty of us patriots 
came to the front. Our horses and accoutrements were 
loaded on cars and run to Platte bridge, a good deal 
faster than we liked on that rough road. We were un- 

65 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



loaded and ordered to "Forward, march" to form a junc- 
tion with the Illinois 16th Regiment (about as rough a 
lot of almost brigands as I came in contact with during 
war time). In the meantime, we learned that the Con- 
federate forces of Raines and Patten were just a few 
hours ahead of us. 

So, tired as we were, we made a forced march that 
same day to New Market in Platte County. Raines' men 
had completely cleaned the County of stuff to eat, and 
the militia were without commissary and had to depend 
on foraging on the enemy, which were mostly women, 
their men being either hid in the brush, or with Raines' 
army ahead of us. Our scouts ran on to a flock of sheep 
killed what they needed, and roasted some of the choice 
pieces, and we ate it half done without salt, bread or any- 
thing else, and turned in for the night, and such a night! 
I took cholera morbus and was awful sick from eating 
that half rare mutton, and had it not been some one had 
a little brandy, or whiskey along, I might not now be 
writing my soldier experience of fifty years ago. The 
Quartermaster's Sergeant of the Illinois troops gave us 
a little share of their rations for breakfast. Meantime, 
the Illinois 16th Infantry were, many of them, mounting 
on the fine saddle horses of Buchanan and Platte coun- 
ties, some horses carrying two men. Early next morning 
the bugle sounded "mount". Rather a strange call for 
an Infantry regiment. 

Next call, "Forward, march, double quick", but the 
double quick was not executed. It had rained a short 
time before, and General Raines' two thousand raw 
mounted recruits, beside several hundred of our crowd 
were mounted, together with one company of regular 
Cavalry (the best drilled soldiers I saw during the war), 
as well as a battery of artillery (the only one I ever wit- 
nessed unlimber in action in my little war experience) 
with the great crowd, all on one road going belter skel- 
ter, we made very little progress. 

Arriving late in the day at the bridge across the 
Platte river at Platte City, we found near the bridge 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

some long ricks of cord wood piled up and "Si Gordon's" 
so called bushwhackers hidden behind them. On the ap- 
proach of our van guard, they opened fire on us and killed 
one man, and I think wounded one or two others, then 
fled across the bridge, through the town to the woods 
beyond. 'Twas then the artillery rushed past where I 
was, to the front, unlimbered and commenced shelling the 
woods northeast of town. The bombs, smoking fuse 
shrieking through the air, bursting in the woods fright- 
ened our green militia, I have an idea, a great deal more 
than they did Col. Gordon's seasoned partisan soldiers. 

Talk about a town being looted! I'll just say, up to 
that time I had but little idea of what war meant. The 
worst elements in the country were turned loose; the 
enraged soldiers were hungry as wolves without com- 
missary and transportation, hence, had to carry on their 
backs, through mud, their blankets and what little com- 
missaries were issued to them before leaving St. Joseph. 
The blankets getting wet with no tents, were mostly 
thrown away, and the provisions eaten up. This was 
what was the matter with that tired mob that night. 
Was it any wonder that they looted the town? 

I'll give only one incident I remember as it was so 
ludicrously funny. The soldiers had run on to a lot of 
very fine canned fruit and other good things to eat, be- 
sides a lot of home spun and woven blankets, in the 
home of a wealthy family. There was no one there keep- 
ing house but an old-like, ponderous negro woman, and 
I'll never forget the fury of that old colored woman ser- 
vant when she contemplated the ruin of her good (she 
said) master's and mistress's home, saying with gestures 
suitable to the occasion, that she'd always been Union, 
but if this was Union she'd not be Union "no mo' ". 

When morning came, we were routed out early, a 
courier having arrived urgently requesting our command 
to hurry up to Liberty with all possible speed, saying a 
disastrous fight had occurred on the north bank of the 
Missouri River near Blue Mills Landing, in which Col. 
Scott's battalion of Iowa Infantry had been entrapped in 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

an ambuscade, together with some Missouri miUtia, and 
badly cut to pieces, losing a good many men in killed 
and wounded, as well as part of their artillery. Col. 
Scott's brave men managed to cut their way out and 
saved one or two cannon, the postilion and gunners 
cutting the dead horses loose and drawing the pieces off 
the bloody field in the face of a furious fusillade, which, 
however, was discharged from only farm rifles and fowl- 
ing pieces of Gen. Raines' raw recruits at long range, do- 
ing very little execution. The Union forces received the 
first onslaught from the ambuscade (they foolishly 
rushed into it) at point blank range of those fowling 
pieces, and in their frantic attempt to unlimber and bring 
their guns into action, many of them were shot down. 
When the bugle sounded their recall, they left their dead 
and wounded on the bloody field. 

Some of my neighbors were killed, others wounded 
in that little battle. The most dead and wounded men 
I saw in my militia experience through the Civil War 
was after this fight (in which the Confederates were the 
victors) at William Jewell C-ollege Hall which was 
converted into a military barracks and hospital. 

Our command hurried full speed, after the news of 
the disastrous repulse at Liberty, without any regard to 
military tactics, arriving in squads all forenoon, and the 
footmen all through the afternoon and evening. Liberty 
was a worse torn up town, if possible, than Platte City 
was when we left it. Stores, shops and many residences 
were completely gutted of everything whether useful or 
not. 

It is a shameful truth that I am sorry to put on 
record that many seemingly good Unionists of that 
period appeared to be more anxious to secure plunder, 
especially good horses or mules as Government con- 
tractors were paying big prices for, than they were to 
face the Confederates, bushwhackers or anything else 
where there was danger in the locality. The rank and 
file were good men ; the trouble was higher up. 

In my opinion, this was one cause of the Confederate 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

success at the beginning of the war. Their people had 
little to lose but niggers and a mighty poor market in 
which to sell. 

Midway Place, Nov. 7th, 1911. 



CHAPTER 28. 



SHIPPING SALT FROM CAMERON, MO., TO 
WINTERSET, lA. 

I wonder if anybody will believe that as heavy and 
cheap an article as common salt has ever been marketed 
in Winterset, Iowa, bought in Cameron and hauled in 
wagons the more than 150 miles over almost boundless 
prairies to Winterset, Iowa. It has been done, and the 
writer is the individual who accompanied that invoice 
consisting of 12 sacks of Kanawa Ohio River salt. Those 
sacks contained 150 lbs. of salt each. It was in June, 
1860, the dry est season that anybody can remember up 
to that time. I think the entire precipitation for twelve 
months would not reach four inches. 

Seeing a total failure of crops stared me, as well as 
every other farmer, in the face, and hearing that crop 
prospects were promising about Des Moines, Iowa; and 
knowing that there was no railway transportation to Des 
Moines nearer than Eddyville in the eastern part of the 
state, I jumped at the conclusion to buy a load of salt and 
haul it to Des Moines and exchange it for flour for back 
load, as was frequently done with Missouri apples out, 
and Iowa flour back, but I later found I'd "reckoned 
without my host." 

I loaded up and started on an old wagon and a plug 
(good, big) horse team, and headed north on old Grand 
River trail. I got out on the big prairie near where I had 
the experience a good many years before in a "Boy's 
Wild Ride — and Wolves after Him," when my troubles 
began. First thing I knew of, off came the tire from one 
of the hind wheels of the old wagon, and I out on the 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

high prairie about two miles down west to skirt of tim- 
ber, and pondering what to do. I saw a man coming 
from the direction of the timber, and waited to see what 
he could tell me about getting out of the bad box I was 
in. Luckily for me, he knew the exact thing I wanted so 
badly to find out. Pointing west, in the direction of the 
timber, he said a country blacksmith had a little repair 
shop there and could set my tire. 

I unhitched my horses, riding one and leading the 
other, and went down to the shop. I found its owner, a 
nice, good man, who loaned me his wagon, and went with 
me. We took along a pole and board to prop it up after 
raising the axle to relieve the wheel whose tire was off. 
We put it and the loose tire in the wagon, and then off 
for the shop. Arriving there, he soon set it, and, still 
using his wagon and team, took it back to where I'd left 
my wagon and camping traps. He helped me get the 
wheel on, charging me 75 cents for all this work and 
trouble. It was nearly night, but I had to find water be- 
fore I could camp, and that was a job at that time out 
on the high prairie; we'd no rain for six months and 
everything was as dry as a powder horn. There were no 
well augurs and bored wells then. 

I had to drive a good many miles in the night (but 
it was pleasant) before coming to a house where I could 
get water for my team. Camping, feeding and watering 
my team took so much time that I took a cold meal as it 
was too late to build up a fire. I was up early in the 
morning feeding my team, and then made a fire, got out 
my cooking outfit and dishes ; I'll give my readers an in- 
voice of the kit — one old coffee pot, one sheet iron frying 
pan with handle, one pint tin cup, one tin pie pan, old 
rusty case knife and two tined fork and pocket jack 
knife, one old ax, and I believe I had along a revolver 
pistol, but am not sure. 

Now for the "menu." Broiled, or fried, bacon, sliced 
bread with bacon grease for butter (had lots of sure 
enough butter and eggs later on), black coffee, brown 
sugar and a little water. The menu was not very elab- 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

orate. The decorations not quite up to a modern coun- 
try club spread, but an appetite like an early day wolf's 
made up for any little deficiencies in style. 

I was on the road pretty early as it was so awful- 
ly dry that the middle of the day, even in June, was 
very hot and wearied my team ; for that reason I started 
early and drove late when I could hear of a good camp- 
ing place several miles ahead. 

I crossed the west fork of the Grand River at 
Groomer's Mill, through old Pattonsburg, Bethany, De- 
catur City to Osceola, where, at evening, after I'd lain 
down in my wagon, I heard the plaintive negro melody 
of "My Poor Nellie Gray, They Have Taken Her Away," 
sung by a lot of young people in a house near by, for 
the first time. I heard it a good many times a little 
later on. I didn't then realize the storm which was 
ready to break over our devoted heads, of which that 
plaintive song was only a monitor. 

Learning in Osceola that I'd have a poor show in 
either Indianola or Des Moines, to sell, or exchange 
salt for money or flour (owing to drouth in Missouri 
and Kansas and failure in the wheat crop so flour had 
gone up and nothing but cash would move it), hence 
I turned northwest headed for Winterset, a good town 
at that early day, but away off from transportation, St. 
Joseph, Mo., being the nearest railroad point. 

There is a big rocky hill northwest of Osceola, called 
the White Breast Hill; there I again had trouble. In 
going down that hill with locked wheel, one of the box- 
ing in the hind wheel broke (in many wagons of those 
days there were two boxes in place of thimble, as now). 
On learning that there was a roadside blacksmith shop 
not far ahead, I drove to it with the broken box. The 
smithy, having no extras, forged out one and put it in 
the hub, which answered for the time, so I drove on 
headed for South River Mills. 

At that time, those water mills did a great deal of 
the grist work, as well as commercial work. These 
mills, if I remember, were about five miles south of 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

Winterset. On arriving at the mill, I called on the pro- 
prietor telling him I wanted to exchange salt for flour. 
I had already learned that he was operating a large 
grocery store in Winterset, and would probably trade 
flour for salt. He wanted salt, but didn't want to give 
flour in exchange, but said he'd take my whole load left 
(I sold one or two sacks to farmers on the road, and 
could readily have sold all, but they had neither flour 
nor money), and give me butter and eggs is exchange, 
butter at 10 cents and eggs at 5 cents. I traded; it was 
a ground hog case, and I had to ; I took all the eggs 
he had, I think about 150 dozen, and had to take the 
balance in butter. As hot as the weather was, you 
can guess what I had before me, 125 miles to St. Joseph, 
Mo., on an almost boundless, treeless plain a great part 
of the way. 

The merchant was a nice man and assisted me in 
every way he could, to pack my goods for its pilgrim- 
age, putting the butter in clean, tight barrels, so in 
case the heat melted it (which it did), I'd not entirely 
lose it, and packed the eggs in bran (no egg cases then). 
I got them through all right and wholesaled them at 
10 cents per dozen, doubling their cost. Not so good, 
however, with the butter. Of many shades of color, 
it made a rather peculiar blend as to color. I'd like 
to have a sample of it now to submit to Dr. Wiley' 
for his opinion as to its purity. 

Well, something had to be done with it. The huck- 
ster I sold my eggs to, told me of a great, big cold 
spring on the Black Snake Creek, which runs from 
the northeast down through town (St. Joseph), and a 
young married couple of Germans, who had rented the 
tract that this spring was on, and he thought the nice 
little German woman would help me prepare the butter 
for market, and she did. I furnished lots of ice and 
helped her, and we worked like beavers one whole Sun- 
day, and got that soft, many colored stuff in shape to 
sell, and we called it butter and sold it as butter, even 
if it was not up to the real Goshen standard. I retailed 

12 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

it at the market house and the little German woman put 
it in rolls. It sold like hot cakes at 12i/^ and 15 cents, 
and I finally found a hotel man, who took the job lot at 
I2y2 cents. 

After many thanks to my good German friends, as 
well as liberally compensating them for helping me, with 
all my pockets full of silver money, I bought part of a 
load of flour, and with rested team, and buoyant spirits, 
struck for home. After paying for my load of salt, I 
think I had about $2.50 per day for myself and team. 
However, I didn't want to peddle any more salt or butter 
that season. 

I might add that on the day I traded that load of 
salt to that nice Winterset grocer and mill man, the 
news was flashed from Chicago that Abraham Lincoln 
had been nominated by the Republican Convention at 
the Great Wigwam, and I'll further remark that, later 
on in the season, in company with several other stock 
men, I visited that "Mecca," the immortal birthplace 
of the Republican Party, so far as results go, the "Great 
Wigwam." 



CHAPTER 29. 



RURAL ROUTE NO. 1, CAMERON, MISSOURL 

This, today, is not ancient history, but fifty years 
hence, might interest some one, when, possibly, all light 
mails will be transported by flying, aerial transporta- 
tion. 

Thirteen years ago I concluded we had as good 
right to have our mail delivered at our doors, as Platte 
City and Maryville, the only two offices at that time 
that I knew of which had rural, free delivery, so I rode 
(no automobiles here then) up to Cameron and con- 
sulted with postmaster F. M. Filson and Attorney A. 
J. Althouse, designating the present route No. 1, which 
has had very little alterations from our first petition. 

73 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

Wc were called optimists by our friends, who said we 
were fooling away a good deal of valuable time, but we 
paid little attention to that kind of talk. 

Althouse got a copy of the law directing how to 
proceed, and wrote the petition, as he does all other 
business intrusted to him (so far as I know) correctly. 
Next morning I was in the saddle early with that peti- 
tion, and I had to dig up the rural delivery law and 
explain it to every fellow I called on to sign my peti- 
tion. The first man I called on, my near neighbor, 
would not sign it at all, saying he was afraid to trust 
his pension papers out on the road in a soap or cigar 
box. I saw it was no use to argue with him, telling 
him life was too short to waste any time trymg to get 
a man six miles from his post office to let the Govern- 
ment send his mail every day in the year, save Sundays 
and four holidays. 

So, away I went and had no difficulty with any 
other man on the route, after the thing was explained 
to him. I was on awfully good terms with my Demo- 
cratic friends that day, as I always am socially. We 
could agree as well as J. P. Morgan and Andy Car- 
negie did when they were injecting $600,000,000 worth 
of water into less than $300,000,000 of steel stocks, and 
brazenly put the $900,000,000 of watered stock on the 
market for green ones to bite at, and they bit, and the 
people are dancing to their music, as well as paying the 
fiddler, the decisions of the Supreme Court notwithstand- 
ing. 

I'd made a good start and was getting ready next 
morning to put in another day on my proposed route,^ 
to wrestle with my neighbor farmers, who were nearly 
all in their fields planting corn, when the whole scheme 
was checkmated, so far as I was concerned. I was. 
out in a pasture giving some directions about a line o£ 
fence my men were building, when a vicious Missouri 
mule kicked at another mule of the same nativity, missed 
the other mule, but hit the rural router and put him 
out of business, so far as walking out in the corn fields 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

and making the usual preliminary book agent talk to 
prospective patrons of the route. Some one came along 
in a buggy going to town, and I got in and went to the 
post office, explaining that I was "hors de combat," while 
I was really "mule de combat," and was down and out. 

But we had the thing started, so Postmaster Fil- 
son and Lawyer Althouse took the matter up where 
the mule kicked me off, and to make sure of success, 
both went all the way to Washington, laying the 
scheme before the proper officer of the department, 
with immediate success. Althouse and Filson were a 
good team then, and are yet when "get there" is the 
prize. • 

Before 24 hours after their arrival in Washington, 
it was flashed over the wire to the Kansas City Journal, 
and almost simultaneously to Cameron and Midway 
Place, that Rural Route No. 1 had been authorized, 
subject to usual regulations. I and my friend J. Lake 
Jones, had just a while before built privately the old 
Red Top telephone line, the first country line out of 
Cameron, hence the news came to us before the public 
generally got it. 

The inspector, Mr. Rathbone, established our line 
by our guaranteeing the building of a bridge or two, 
which our good court cheerfully did, and we escorted 
the first rural mail carrier to the farthest point of his 
route with a full brass band, having a fine dinner at 
Deer Creek School house, where the writer was called 
on to tell about going for the mail 50 years ago, in 
which he recounted some of the evolutions of the postal 
business for 100 years previous, including the efforts of 
the great Postmaster General of England, Roland Hill, 
for penny postage. 

Now, 12 years later, there starts from Cameron 
every (mail) day in the year, 8 rural carriers, two of 
whom are using fast motorcycles on well dragged roads. 

In this connection, I may be pardoned for insisting, 
in season and out of season, on the use of the King 
split log pattern road drag, which is now being manu-i 

75 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

factured of steel by our old friends, the Dildine Bridge 
Company at Hannibal, Mo., which do excellent work 
and last always. 



CHAPTER 30. 



MY FIRST TRIP TO CAMERON, AND COLONEL 
M. F. TIERNAN. 

Nearly all of the older residents of Cameron will 
need no introduction to Col. M. F. Tiernan, who camei 
with the first business people to Cameron. I think 
Col. Tiernan, when I first knew him, was one of th© 
most polished gentlemen of the old South that I had 
met. A genial, witty story teller, yet suave and polite, 
almost to a fault. He was a Marylander of (I pre-« 
sume) Irish lineage, and I think Catholic faith. 

'Twas on my first trip to Cameron I met him for 
the first time. Cameron then consisted of an old shack/ 
which I think has been torn down and moved and re-- 
built for a stable, or something of the kind. I think it 
stood near where the north side public school buildings, 
are now. Why I recollect the little shack is, it was 
the only place I could find to hitch my horse that damp, 
gloomy November morning. 

The two frame buildings had recently been moved 
from a point one mile east of town, called Summerville, 
and abandoned because of its inconvenience to get to 
and from the country. One of them was still on the 
trucks with big capstan still anchored on the prairie; 
there were no streets then. The other, having been 
moved first with the little stock of goods and notions, 
remained in transit for shelter in case of rain, the store- 
keeper selling goods as they moved when wanted. 

After securely fastening my horse, I went to the 
store. It was a pretty cold day; they had a little stove 
and some fire, around which were several railroad peo- 
ple, and some few citizens from the country, like my- 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

self discussing the possibilities of the new townsite, and 
the probability of how long it would take to reach 
Cameron from St. Joseph with the iron tract, etc. (It 
took two or more years from that time.) 

The proprietor of the little stock of goods, hap- 
pened to be gone that day, I think, to St. Joseph. Mr. 
Summerville, who first owned the goods down at the old 
townsite, I think, had just sold the stock to a St. Joe 
man, named A. T. Baubie, well known many years later 
as Major Baubie. Col. Tiernan, being a friend of Mr, 
Baubie, seemed to be in charge of the little establish- 
ment that day. Finally, some one called for sugar; I 
think probably it was myself. The Colonel, shaking the 
sugar barrel and scraping around the bottom, said there* 
was no sugar in the barrel worth anything, remarking 
that the proprietor had taken several teams to St. Joe 
to replenish the stock. Directly another customer called 
for a plug of tobacco. The Colonel scraped around and 
found the tobacco also was used up, so made the same 
explanation to the tobacco customer. Presently some 
one called for a gallon of whiskey, whereupon the Colonel 
shook up the apparently empty whiskey barrel, and 
hearing nothing but the rattle of soaked tobacco, burnt 
dried peaches and other refuse stuff in the bottom; 
turned to the customer and crowd generally, saying, "I 
declare, out of three of the most necessary things of life, 
whiskey, sugah and tobaccah." 

In closing this story, it is with profound regret 
that I record that whiskey proved the undoing of the 
genial Col. Tiernan. He went down and down to the 
gutter, finally blowing his brains out in the Baubie 
Hall one morning. On his wife (the splendid woman 
he had married late in life in Baltimore) viewing his 
dead body weltering in his blood, she exclaimed, "This' 
is the end the damnable saloons have brought this good 
man to." 

Mrs. Tiernan was an estimable, scholarly lady, who 
taught a select school of higher branches. My young- 
est daughter, Maude, was one of her pupils, and rec- 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



ognized her as a fine teacher and splendid lady. She 
died a few years after the Colonel's death, leaving, I 
think, but little property and no children to bear the dis- 
grace of a drink-crazed, suicide father. 



CHAPTER 31. 



THE END JUSTIFIED THE MEANS, OR KANSAS 
CITY'S BIG DRUNK. 

The opening of Kansas City's Stock Yards occurred 
in June, 1871. At that time, the little, one story box 
building located at the north end of the present big 
yards, not far from where wagon loads of stock are now 
unloaded, constituted the office building. 

There were not more than three or four blocks of 
lots, most of them pretty strong, to hold the wild range 
Texas cattle. This occasion, I think, was the first Live 
Stock Show, there being a premium offered for car loads 
of range cattle. As my memory goes, the Hunter Bros, 
got the premiums. They, at that time, were handling 
lots of Texas cattle. 

In order to get stockmen's attention turned to Kan- 
sas City as a market, a big banquet, including the big 
drunk spoken of, was given by the city people, stock 
yards people, and all the big trunk railway lines finished 
from east and progressing rapidly to the range country 
south and west, contributed freely to make a grand 
spread to the stockmen of four states and several terri- 
tories to the south and west. 

They made a huge success by sending out invita- 
tions with free tickets to all the known shippers of stock, 
who had previously been trading in Chicago and St. 
Louis. They got them here, and got lots of them pretty 
drunk at that free lunch banquet. The fact is, it was 
the biggest banquet, as well as the biggest drunk, I ever 
saw. It did the business, though, and from that pretty 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

noisy beginning, the biggest Live Stock Exchange Build- 
in the known world, and second largest live stock mar- 
ket in the world has grown up. 

Words fail me to describe that banquet. It was in 
a large hall, I think, on Main or Delaware Sts., about 
5th or 6th. The noisy crowd gathered in the street op- 
posite the banquet hall, and packed the street with a 
good natured, jostling, rollicking, milling conglomera- 
tion of cow-boys, ranchmen, drovers, feeders, shippers 
and last, but not least, conspicuous were the Indian 
contingent. They milled, jollied and yelled, until it 
was announced "grub" was ready, and such a rush they 
made to that sumptuous feast. Notwithstanding the 
tables were capable of seating several hundred at a time. 
I can't tell how many times they were filled. 

And the wine. Great Caesars! I've never seen any- 
thing equal to it, and it was of an excellent quality. 
About a half dozen waiters served it without any limit. 

One old Cherokee Chief seemed to be an especial 
favorite with everybody. They dined him and wined 
him to his heart's content, but they overdid it some. 
They poured it into him until he limbered up, or, rather, 
limbered down, and the last I saw of him, about six of 
his cowboys were carrying him down and out. 

I got tired and repaired to the Coates House to hear 
the speakers, several from Colorado and New Mexico, 
beside local talent. By the way, some of the local tal- 
ent was not quite so full of the "red grape barrow" as, 
was the old Cherokee, but had enough to limber up their 
tongues. I think a Mr. McCoy, and perhaps Milt Magee, 
were some of the natives who sang of the coming glory 
of Kansas City, and even if they were a little boozy, 
they were pretty good prophets. 

How different the West Bottoms looked then and 
now! The street from the Union Depot had great mud 
holes and big stumps, now and then a big tree, with 
little frame shacks at intervals. Most of those shacks 
were dedicated to the sale of booze. The old State Line 
House was the hotel. Some of tht "Thirst Shops" 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



served lunch to cowboys, greasers, loafers or anybody 
who patronized them. 

It is not necessary to tell how this locality looks at 
present. Take a look at it after reading my very im- 
perfect description of how it looked then. 

JAMES WILLIAMS, 

Cameron, Mo. 



CHAPTER 32. 



B. F. DAVIS. 

Who, that lived in Clinton County twenty-five years 
ago, does not remember this tall, long, bearded, genial. 
Democratic politician of those days? Frank, like Davy 
Crockett, the hero of the Alamo, believed strongly in 
rotation of offices. That is, when Frank had served the 
good people of our county through one official term, he 
was willing to let some other good Democrat take the 
vacated office, and take another "higher up" himself. 

I think I am safe in asserting that Frank nursed 
more pretty babies along about the election campaigns, 
not only nursing them, but succeeding beyond his most 
sanguine expectations, in convincing many a Republican 
woman that her baby was about the prettiest that he'd 
struck in .the county. 

Frank kept climbing till he got to the top of the 
county office's ladder. Then, it was, he dropped down 
and out of politics, and struck for an increased clientele, 
hence, better wages. He went into the live stock com- 
mission business in St. Joseph. Not only that, but has 
gone into publishing a periodical, which he dubs, 
"Davis' Yellow Journal." In that journal he introduces 
an old gentleman, whom he calls "Old Man Facts." 
The picture of this old fellow reminds one of a very old 
gentleman known in our beloved country as "Uncle 
Sam," One thing, Frank and his son have neglected 
to blow about the wonderful advantages their "yellow" 
literature offers to advertisers. 

80 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



CHAPTER 33. 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 

How strange it is first impressions in our early in- 
fancy stay with us through life. The very first per- 
formance of my life that I can distinctly remember oc- 
curred in Van Buren, (now Cass County) Missouri, about 
35 miles southeast of Kansas City, near Pleasant Hill, 
as I have said several times in this w^ork. My father 
was a Baptist (not a hard shell) preacher. This event 
must have occurred about the year 1839 or 40. We lived 
in a log house, I believe the old English law called a^ 
man's house his castle. However, this house, as I re- 
member it, did not bring to mind the Castle of Belted 
Will with serrated bastions and moat and draw bridge 
in some ancient forest, but it was only a plain little 
hewed log house on the claim we had squatted on be- 
fore the government had surveyed the land and subject 
to the famous squatter's sovereign rights of that day. 

My parents were away from home attending a re- 
vival meeting in the neighborhood and a cousin of mine, 
John Williams, who was about four years older than I 
was staying with me that afternoon. 

Now, us. Baptists were strong on immersion and us 
two boys having baptising on the brain, (it refreshened 
by the recent revival), concluded we'd turn preachers 
and, of course, had to baptise our converts. Our Jordan 
was nearby. "There was much water there," the fact 
there was too much depth in those prairie holes of water 
for our depth (we tried it with our fishing poles). So 
we had to strike a convert that we could trust in that 
deep water whether he had repented or not. So look- 
ing about us for a proper subject we discovered a great 
favorite of the family, in fact its mascot. The family 
name of our newly found convert was Thomas, a name 
that reached back in his family farther than history or 
tradition. 

Thomas didn't altogether approve of the preliminary 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

proceedings of the two young ministers — they raked 
around for a good long string and finally found a plow 
line (^little rope") which they after a good deal of coax- 
ing, got Thomas to allow them to tie around his neck. 
(So away they went "Nolens Volens" like a good many 
other Christian ministers do with their quite young and 
helpless converts.") Arriving at their Jordan, their new 
convert, it seemed was about to go into a fit of hydro- 
phobia. Tom didn't like the looks of the water and like 
some other converts squalled and scratched, but we bap- 
tized him just the same. We had never read any church 
dogmas about triune immersion with face downward 
which is believed to be scriptural by many good chris- 
tians. However, we practiced that style on that (for 
poor Thomas^ fatal day. The cat hadn't repented but 
the writer remembers he had some reason to repent when 
his mother next morning learned of Thomas' tragical, un- 
timely end. 



CHAPTER 34. 



CANNING FRUITS. MEATS. ETC. 

It may not be known by many young people that the 
canning of fruits, fish, meats and vegetables was not 
practised, if even known. 65 years ago. The first I ever 
heard, or read, of such a process of preserving fruits, 
meats, etc.. I read in "The Valley Farmer". I think about 
the year 1856 or '57. The paper was published in St. 
Louis by E. K. Woodward and Ephraim Abbot, who. a 
while after. I think, sold to Norman J. Coleman and it 
was merged into Coleman's Rural World, which be- 
came famous during Mr. Coleman's long and useful 
career. 

The article referred to went on to explain how one 
Professor Gamgee. of some college or university, had 
been making experiments by heating the fruit to drive 
out the air. then hermetically sealing it while hot. prac- 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

tically the way it is done now throughout the civilized 
world, predicting that "Gamgeed" fresh beef v/ould 
finally be a possibility, if the learned professor's theory 
held good in practice, and it now looks like the professor 
knew what he was talking about when he v^;as explain- 
ing his new process of preserving almost anything that 
we use daily, salt, perhaps, excepted. That discovery 
should rank in importance with the invention of the 
cotton gin by Whitney, or the steam engine by Steph- 
enson and its application to transportation by Fulton 
and others, its use being about as universal as any of 
those great inventions. 

I also can well remember when the first iron steam- 
ship, the "Great Britain," landed at the wharves at New 
York, I think in the winter of 1846 and '47. I remem- 
ber her dimensions, length and beam, and ton burthen, 
and all about her building was published in the New 
York Evening Post, which was taken by a man by the 
name of Amos Hart, who was, at the time staying with 
my parents finishing a log house. 

This ship "Great Britain," should not be confounded 
with the Leviathan built many years later, the "Great 
Eastern", which would have dv/arfed the "Great Britain" 
into a barge or yawl. While I've not gotten the ton 
capacity of the "Great Eastern", but think it was the 
biggest since the one built in a very early day by one 
"Noah", the passenger capacity of v/hich was eight 
souls, bodies included, I presume. 

But for passenger service there is probably nothing 
in the known world equaling the great "Mauritania" 
and her twin sister, "Lusitania." I'd like to have seen 
a model of one of those monster ocean grey hounds 
alongside of the models of the "Pinta", "Santa Maria" 
and "Nina", the fieet which left Genoa with Christopher 
Columbus as commander. A replica of those three fam- 
ous vessels, it will be remembered, was shown on the 
lake at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



CHAPTER 35. 



WILLIAM E. CROYSDALE. 

Mr. Croysdale was among the first to sell goods in 
Cameron, having married a Miss Skinner, whose father 
was a very wealthy slave owner in Platte county, and 
who built a big water mill on Platte river in an early 
day, Mr. Croysdale's house was on, I think, part of the 
ground nov/ occupied by the older college buildings, and 
all of Ford's Addition to Cameron, as well as Ford's new 
cemetery was on the Mrs. Croysdale, nee Skinner, tract. 

Mr. Croysdale sold goods quite a while after the 
war broke out, but his wife's people all being large slave 
owners, everybody considered him a sympathizer with 
the Confederates. While this may, to some extent, have 
been true, he was, nevertheless, as law abiding a man 
as was in Cameron at that time. 

It was not to his interest to be a rebel, owning as 
he and his wife did, the store and the foundation for a 
fortune in real estate. Croysdale was smart enough to 
know that the slave business was done for, even before 
the Emancipation Proclamation, hence he was a Union 
man for pecuniary reasons, if for nothing else, just as 
the Confederates were for the property which was in 
slaves, if for nothing else. 

There were a good many pretty rough characters 
holloing loudly for the Union, whom Mr. Croysdale had 
some reasons to believe were none too good to get a 
lot of half drunken soldiers and raise the hue and cry of 
"rebel" and loot his store, of which there had been an 
example a short time before. I refer to the looting of 
Mr. Weatherly's store, of which I can't give the particu- 
lars not being present at the time. 

Mr. Croysdale came to me one day, saying, "Wil- 
liams, take this store, run it as best you can, I'll pay 
good clerks and bookkeepers, and you need not put one 
cent of your own money in the business, and take half the 
profits for your time and influence," and I only a young 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

man without any business qualifications for the dry 
goods and grocery trade. I took the matter under con- 
sideration and consulted with mother, as I always did, 
and took her advice which had always been safe, and 
stayed with what I knew something about, i. e., hand- 
ling live stock on the farm, and I also shipped consid- 
erable of grain and other produce as well. 

Mr. Croysdale closed out his store and moved to 
Independence, Mo., handling several farms, and, finally, 
going to Kansas City and establishing the Croysdale, 
Vaughn Grain Company in the Board of Trade building, 
and his sons are still there doing business as the Croys- 
dale Grain Company. I formed their acquaintance while 
I was living south of the city on Holmes road. One of 
them bought a 5-acre tract which I showed him and 
his father on the occasion of their visiting me, and on 
which he built a nice, modern residence with a nice large 
lawn; I gave them the trees which are now ornament- 
ing that beautiful dooryard. 

Young Croysdale, finding it too far to street car 
transportation, sold it to Senator C. W. Clarke, who 
had married a maiden sister of his. The Senator, a 
sturdy Republican, who, when the dead lock occurred in 
the Republican legislature of Missouri, and it was di- 
vided and could not elect either Thos. J. Niedringhaus 
or Mr. Kerens to the United States Senate, opened a 
headquarters in favor of Major Warner, who, as every 
one knows, was elected over that distinguished, grand 
old man. Senator Cockrell, who was afterward given a 
place on the Interstate Commerce Commission by Presi- 
dent Roosevelt, as the best available Democrat for the 
position. I think the distinguished gentleman has filled 
the position to the entire satisfaction of all parties. 

Senator Warner, ever grateful, recommended State 
Senator Clarke for collector of the port and general 
manager of the great post office and Government build- 
ings at Kansas City, which office, I think, he still holds 
under the Taft administration. He now lives at 75th and 
Holmes Sts. on the tract young Croysdale bought and 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

improved, and Mr. Croysdale lived with them until his 
death, which occurred about five years since. The writer 
has had some little dealings and acquaintance with 
Senator Clarke while living at Lonesomehurst Park, and 
found him a very affable gentleman, and worthy of the 
high office he fills. 

The writer was well acquainted with Mr, Wm. A. 
Vaughn, who was the genial clerk of Mr. Croysdale's 
store when he sold goods in Cameron. Mr. Vaughn was 
an ardent adherent to the Confederate cause having mar- 
ried a sister of Mrs, Croysdale, one of the Skinner girls. 
He showed his faith in the Confederate cause by enlist- 
ing and going south, and stayed with it to Appomattox, 
and came home and acted like the gentleman that he 
was, and always greeted me when I'd visit him in his 
office in the Board of Trade building, with a cordial 
shake of the hand, always inquiring about his old Cam- 
eron acquaintances. The last time I met him was at 
the steamship ferry office in San Francisco, nearly twen- 
ty-five years since. 

I was going across the bay and up to Santa Rosa, 
A gentleman just before me was purchasing a ticket, 
I being next. When he turned, I was face to face with 
my old friend, Billy Vaughn. We instantly recognized 
each other, and had a talk while the steamer was cross- 
ing the bay. He told me he was on the way to Sitka, 
Alaska, (however, not that day), but was on an outing 
up the sound and insisted strongly on my ^oing along, 
which I regretted that I could not leave my home affairs 
long enough to make the trip. When I took this genial, 
good man by the hand in parting, it was a long farewell. 
It so happened that I never saw him after he returned. 

On one occasion at Cameron in the early days of 
the war, I was in the store when he called me, saying, 
"Jim, you are hustling all the time. Let me tell you 
how to make a fortune." "How, Billy?" I said. An- 
swering, he said, "Go to the mouth of the Kaw river 
and buy some of that swamp land east of the river 
between it and the bluff (which is now known as the 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

West Bottoms), and if you live to be an old man it will 
make a fortune. I replied, "It is about all I can do to 
keep soul and body together here, Bill," saying, "If you 
have so much faith in the land, why don't you buy some 
of it?" He replied saying he did not have the money 
or he would. 

When he got home from the war, he did just the 
thing he advised me to do, bought real estate in Kan- 
sas City, (however, not in the West Bottoms), and when 
he died the papers said he left an estate valued in the 
neighborhood of a quarter of a million of dollars. I 
think he has several sons in Kansas City, but I've never 
made their acquaintance. 

When many years after I'd visit him sometimes, he 
referred to the time we were fighting for our rights, but 
not with the usual bitterness which was common at that 
time of the returned adherents of the "Lost Cause." 



CHAPTER 36. 



THE TRAGIC DEATH OF W. B. LA FORCE. 

The La Force brothers were our neighbors when 
we lived at Lonesomehurst Park south of Westport, in 
Jackson County, Mo. Mr. W. B. and his brother, B. 
F., the financial agent and real estate broker in the New 
York Life building, married sisters, the daughters of a 
Mr. Estill, a wealthy real estate owner of Howard 
county, Mo., who many years ago built the massive 
Estill Flats across from the New Coates Hotel. 

Mr. W. B, had bought the 100 acre tract located six 
miles south of Westport, on Wornall road, one of the best 
improved tracts in that vicinity. Mr. W. R. Nelson, 
owner of the Kansas City Star, made the improvements 
for a fine country home, as I have heard, but got into 
a deal with Judge Chrisman for the Times newspaper, 
and Chrisman put it, and other lands on the market, 
and La Force bought the 100 acres. He had an ambition 

87 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

to build up, and had succeeded in getting together the 
finest herd of thoroughbred Jersey cows probably in 
the country, and took a great pride in their breeding, 
and his dairy had probably the best and most select 
clientele for its products in Jackson County. 

He had a large barn fitted with all kinds of ma- 
chinery for preparing feed for his cows, with a big gaso- 
line engine and overhead shafting and pulleys for driv- 
ing the different machines. He and one of his colored 
assistants were running one of the machines, when the 
driving belt came off the big engme and in place o£ 
stopping it, as his colored man suggested, saying, "I've 
put it on many a time when the engine was running," 
and he'd not more than gotten the words out of his 
mouth (the last he spoke), when the big belt looped, 
or hitched, around the big overhead line shaft, jerking 
it loose from its fastenings and bringing it down and 
striking Mr. La Force on the head and killing him almost 
instantly. 

Mr. La Force had several nice boys, as it has been 
my pleasure to meet them. No matter when or where 
one meets them, they always recognize him by politely 
tipping the cap and speaking respectfully. They are at 
Harvard, I am informed by their uncle, B. F., and I pre- 
dict a bright future for those genteel behaved boys, and 
wish them, and their good mother, all the happiness that 
their good conduct and surroundings will surely bring to 
them. 

Their uncle, B. F. La Force, is a fine business man, 
with whom I've had (for me) pretty large transactions, 
which have been entirely satisfactory, and I can cheer- 
fully recommend him as a first class man with whom to 
do business. 



CHAPTER 37. 



ERNEST KELLERSTRASS. 
Who has not heard of the Kellerstrass chicken ranch 
at 85th and Holmes St., Kansas City? I am quite well 

88 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

acquainted with Mr. Kellerstrass, and have had some 
Httle dealings with him, and have found him a fair and 
liberal man in a neighborhood deal. 

As to his fine White Orpingtons, they tell their 
own story at the shows. Mr. Kellerstrass told me that 
he sold Madame Paderewski, the great pianist's wife, 
five young pullets for the great sum of $7,500.00 which a 
man, who was working for him at the time told me he 
had seen Paderewski's check for the money. 

I regret to hear Mr. Kellerstrass' health is not good. 



CHAPTER 38. 



MORGAN BOONE. 

Morgan Boone lives on Holmes Street Road, half 
a mile south of the electric line at 85th and Holmes 
Street. I lived four years a neighbor to Mr. Boone, and 
found him a fine Christian gentleman, a good neighbor 
with a fine wife and lots of goods boys and girls. 

I regret I cannot mention each of my old neighbors 
at Lonesomehurst, but they can rest assured I will never 
forget their kind treatment while living there, or when 
I visit them after moving back to my old beloved home, 
Midway Place, Cameron, Missouri. 



CHAPTER 39. 



SOME THINGS I'VE SEEN IN THEATERS AND 

SHOWS. 

Now I know when I commence to tell about what 
strange tricks I witnessed in shows, my friends will smile 
at my seeming ignorance of sleight of hand juggling, 
legerdemain. Well, I've not seen it all by any means, 
nor wouldn't if I lived one hundred or more years, but 

89 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

Fll tell what I've seen that looked strange, as well as 
felt strange. "Seeing is believing, but feeling is the 
naked truth." 

On one occasion, there was a big show in Chicago. 
I went in the side show. There was a fair haired little 
woman, who was loudly proclaimed by her chaperon, a 
man, who said she could teD. what any one had con- 
cealed in their hands, or pocket. He asked any one 
to ask her what they had in their hand : ho"A'ever, he'd 
always repeat what the party said who asked the ques- 
tion. One or two out of the hundreds of others asked, 
will illustrate what I am trying to explain. 

One person asked, "What have I in my hand?" 
The chaperon repeated it. "A watch", which was true. 
"What time by that watch'" She answered the time 
indicated by the hands on the dial of that watch. I 
thought I'd test her. I had at the time a piece of paper 
with a name on it, and it was a check for my grip left at 
the depot. Holding it in my hand, shut up tightly, and 
down where the man could not see it (the woman 
was blindfolded so she could not see), I asked, "What 
do I hold in my hand?" (the gentleman repeating the 
question). "A piece of paper," she said. ''Has that 
paper any value?" I said. "Yes, ten cents," which 
was the price I had to pay for my baggage upon presen- 
tation of the check, and dozens of others asked, who 
said they were not in any way connected with the show, 
and had the same experience. 

On another occasion, being in Chicago with stock 
some years later, not more than 18 years since, at the 
hotel a lot of stock men after supper asked the host 
where we could have a good evening's entertainment. 
He told us by all means to go to a certain theater Q've 
forgotten the name), as there was undoubtedly, he said, 
the strangest performance by a little woman that had 
ever appeared before a Chicago audience, and was the 
wonder and comment of all the newspaper reporters. 

So several of the guests went. After some pretty 
fair vaudeville and other attractions, the strange lady 

90 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

was introduced, but first the proprietor made a talk tell- 
ing the audience of her wondrous feats of strength, at 
the same time inviting six men (he wanted six big 
strong men), and pledged those volunteering to come 
up on the platform of the theater that no trick of any 
kind should be played on them for the amusement of 
the audience. The crowd seemed suspicious, where- 
upon I suggested to the two or three stockmen who 
had come with me from the hotel that I'd go if they 
would. They, after some hesitation, finally went, and 
I think about three of us. When we went on the plat- 
form we were offered nice seats, and the platform mana- 
ger didn't have much trouble in getting his quota. 

He then told us why he wanted big strong men, 
also assuring us that he had a pleasant surprise for us 
and his audience, as well, saying, "You'll not soon 
forget what you've experienced here tonight." And I 
haven't. I think the first trial of that little, feeble 
looking woman's strength was with a big long heavy 
pitch fork handle. We were asked if we knew what the 
handle was. Of course we did. "Now, gentlemen, stand 
in line here in front of the footlights so the audience can 
see this little lady push you six big men all over this 
platform with ease, try as hard as you may to push her 
back or off the platform," She put the palm of her 
open hand on the rounded top end of the handle, and 
we all gripped it with both hands and braced our feet. 
When the word was given, "All ready?" "Yes," she 
shoved those six men across the stage apparently as 
easily as one of us could have shoved a baby wagon. 
I know I pushed against her with all my strength, and 
the others said that they did the same. 

Then a chair was gotten and one of us sat 
down on the chair and two on him, and she put her 
open hands on one of the front rounds in the chair and 
lifted the chair with us on it up high enough for the 
audience to hear it crack when it came to the floor, 
which was repeated several times, after which a good, 
long green hickory cane, made from a hoop pole, 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

the proprietor said, was brought, and he asked us to 
verify to the audience that the cane was what he claimed 
it to be, which we did, about four of us (all who could 
get a good grip on the cane, at any rate), took it in 
our hands, and were told that the lady would twist that 
hoop pole cane into a withe, if we would grip it so 
tightly that it would not turn in our hands, and that 
she would only lay the palm of her open hand on top 
of the cane. She twisted the cane into a withe, and an 
Iowa stockman took it back to our hotel to show and said 
he would take it home with him. 



CHAPTER 40. 



A TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEY IN 1846. 

In the spring of 1846, I think it was, a topographical 
surveying expedition was fitted out at Fort Leaven- 
worth by the United States Government under the com- 
mand of Lieut. Emory of the Topographical Engineers, 
whose report to the Department fell into my hands some 
two or three years after, and as I always wanted to be 
an engineer, dry and uninteresting as those official re- 
ports usually are to young persons, I, at that time 
thought the Pacific Coast, especially Oregon, (we didn't 
own California until 1846) was a veritable paradise on 
earth, so I became intensely interested in that scientific 
report. 

This expedition started from Fort Leavenworth fol- 
lowing the "Old Santa Fe Trail" across Kansas, then 
Indian Territory to and up the Arkansas, past Bent's 
Fort, up the "Huerfano", through Raton pass down to 
La5 Vegas and Santa Fe and Albuquerque ; thence, strik- 
ing west to the head waters of the Gila (Hela) River, 
past the old copper mines vicinity, giving the best de- 
scription of the Navajos and Popo Maricopas Indians 
I've ever seen, mentioning the Bill Williams Mountain, 
now so well known by travelers over the Santa Fe 

02 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

route, crossing the Colorado River, and up the Mojave 
country and Maricopas, also of the thieving Navajos, 
as v/eil as the wondrous blankets made by the Navajo 
women from the long wool of their numerous flocks; 
crossing part of the Great Desert to their final destina- 
tion, San Diego, California. 

Strange as it may appear, I learned from this re- 
port how engineers arrive at the altitude, latitude and 
longitude by scientific instruments and the fixed stars, 
as well as by real measurements. Of course, I could 
not have done, or made, the intricate astronomical cal- 
culations; however, I got some idea how (to the un- 
learned), those apparently impossible things could be 
worked out by triangulation. 

After nearly forty years, I went over nearly the 
same route as that survey. I was some better prepared 
than most of the passengers on the Santa Fe to under- 
stand the locality we were passing through than those 
who had not studied these notes made by scientists, 
and that report has been more than verified as to the 
mineral, agriculture and stock raising, and wonderful 
scenery of Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, as well 
as the wonderful, and as yet, unexplained mirage of 
those great cactus deserts of glittering white sand, in 
whose burning wastes so many have since perished. 

I have only once witnessed the mirage, at Mojave 
Station on the Santa Fe. Plenty of people exclaimed, 
"Oh, look at the pretty lake of water and trees on itS; 
shore." I knew in a moment their delusion from the 
descriptions in that survey report, and other books of 
travel across deserts. 

When that survey was made, Westport was the last 
town in the West under the Stars and Stripes. "Old 
Rough and Ready" had not issued his famous order at 
Buena Vista, when everything appeared to be lost, "A 
little more grape. Captain Bragg, a little more grape, 
sir.'' Nor the gallant charge of Captain May at Resaca 
de la Palma; nor had the heroic Major Ringgold offered 
up his life as a sacrifice on the altar of his country. Nor 

93 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

had the "Xenophon of the West" made his famous 
march. 

It was along about this time our country began to 
make history. There has been more accompHshed from 
that time to this to ameHorate the condition of man- 
kind than had been since the days of Greece and Rome 
in all their glory. And, yet, with all our progress in 
the direction of bettering the condition of our toiling 
millions, the demon of drink has kept pace with all of 
cur progress, and fills the streets, grog shops, beer guz- 
zling establishments, called saloons, with their freezing, 
ragged, starving devotees, on those a\%'ful bitter wintry 
nights, defying all the associated philanthropists to re- 
lieve their urgent needs, and yet these same people want, 
or tolerate, the source of a great part of this suffering. 



CHAPTER 41. 



ISAAC D. BALDWIN, THE PIONEER SETTLER 
OF SHOAL TOWNSHIP. CLINTON COUNTY. 

I have never heard it questioned that Isaac D. Bald- 
win was the first settler in Shoal To\\Tiship. as the 
township lines are at present. He, however, had some 
contemporary settlers in what was then the limits of 
this Shoal Township, in the persons of Jonathan Stone, 
Harvey Springer, John B. Gibson and a few others, in 
what is now Platte Township. 

Mr. Baldwin settled on the farm now o\%med by 
Mr. George Henderson near a good spring, now on the 
Mr. Ed. Rice's place near the Baldwin residence, about 
the year 1830. The Baldwin residence was at the cross 
roads, east and west road from Far W^est, (at that time 
in its zenith) to Plattsburg and beyond to Fort Leaven- 
worth and Weston, which at that time, was the largest 
town north of the Missouri River above Brunswick ex- 
cept St. Joseph. Robideaux's Landing and Trading Post. 

Joseph Robideaux was an early French trader with 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

the Indians, whose first name the city of St. Joseph 
bears. I have seen Monsieur Robideaux several times 
in my young days. Many of us early settlers did a good 
deal of our trading at St. Joseph, as it soon became a 
good, big town, and was the nearest Missouri River 
point. 

But I digress from Baldwin. The great highway 
from the Missouri River at Liberty, running north 
crossed the great trail east and west at Baldwin's place, 
and for 20 years, or more, was the most public place 
in Clinton County outside of Plattsburg. Many more 
immigrants passed Baldwin's place than Plattsburg. 

Isaac D. Baldwin was an old Tennessean. and swore 
by the hero of New Orleans to the day of his death, 
which occurred in February, 1849, only a few years 
later than the old hero's. Baldwin could tell some amaz- 
ing stories, as could many others of the old pioneer 
hunters and trappers of those days. He was, for many 
years, justice of the peace, and there was seldom any 
appeal from Squire Bald\\nn's decisions. 

The first postoffice in the present limits of Shoal 
Township was at Baldwin's, and Isaac D. Baldwin post- 
master. I wish I had a photograph of it and its sur- 
roundings, to present to some historical society. Its 
namie was Mount Refuge. Ealdv/in nearly always kept 
a barrel or two of whiskey, and any one could buy it 
by the gallon for 25 cents, but its sale was not the prime 
leason for keeping it. There was alv/ays a large local 
demand for it. 

Mr. Baldwin heeded the injunction, "Be fruitful 
and multiply," etc., as he was the father of 16 children, 
all of whom have gone from this vicinity, save one, Mrs. 
Philip Uhrich, of Cameron. The youngest, one of his 
girls, married Anderson Cameron a son of Elisha Cam- 
eron, for whom Cameron was named. 

For several years before his death, Baldwin kept 
a cross roads store, and an old fashioned sweep, horse 
power grist mill, and I'd like to have a picture of it 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

also, as I have not language adequate to describe it 
and its products. 

Mr. Baldwin and his first wife, and several of his 
children and a few others, were buried on the old home- 
stead, and I think their graves are now desecrated and 
entirely lost to sight. I took a little look for those graves 
not long since, and I felt a sigh of regret that the most 
picturesque character of our early settlers should be 
allowed to lie in neglected graves in the manner in vv^hich 
they are. 

When Baldwin died, it took James W, Kirkpatrick 
three days to sell the store and other property. Mr. 
Kirkpatrick was the best auctioneer at that time, I think, 
in Clinton County. 

A fatality occurred going home from that sale. A 
Mr. Chris Harter was thrown out of a sleigh and killed. 
Mr. Harter v/as a relative of the Harters, who have 
lived many years in, and around, Cameron. 

Another fatal incident of the sale was, some one 
disturbed a hive of bees, which came out in great num- 
bers and attacked a horse, a big stallion, and stung him 
so badly that he died. 

That Isaac D. Baldwin was one of the most pictures- 
que characters who has lived in Shoal, or any other part 
of Clinton County, will be admitted by all who knew 
him, if there are any such now living. 

The period of his death about divides the old from 
the new. I regret that there are but three or four people 
about Cameron, who can attest as true what I have 
written of this old pioneer. Among the few who will 
remember Mr. Baldwin, are, Mrs. Louisa Kariker, Mrs. 
Elizabeth Newberry and Mrs. Susan Harris, and perhaps 
Jack Reed. JAMES WILLIAMS, 

Midway Place, September 16, 1911. 

CHAPTER 42. 



HIRAM STEPHENSON. 
There are but few of the early settlers who will 
not remember Hiram Stephenson, who settled at the 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

head of the Httle creek known as Wilhams' Creek in 
(History of Clinton County) about the year 1839, and 
lived there until within a few years of his death about 
20 years since. He was justice of the peace for many 
years. He was my wife's, and John Stephenson's father 
by his first wife, who died when my wife was a baby. 

His second wife, Sally, was a daughter of the late 
James McBeath, who was the first butcher Cameron 
had, killing the cattle and hogs at home and peddling the 
meat in Cameron. His last beef was always the fattest 
one. 

Hiram Stephenson taught school in "that first school 
house" in which I was a pupil, and at which I learned 
the rudiments of Pike's arithmetic which have stayed 
with me till this day. Mr. Stephenson was a born mathe- 
matician. For an ordinary problem he seldom had any 
need of a slate and pencil only to demonstrate to his 
pupils. 

He was a man of strict honesty and was never 
known to prevaricate, or swerve from truth and justice 
and fair dealing, notwithstanding he held to unbelief in 
the Scriptures. It is a pity that many professing be- 
lievers do not practice those sterhng qualities, as did 
Hiram Stephenson. 

He suffered with stomach trouble and indigestion 
uncomplainingly for many years, retaining his pleasant 
good humor and kindly words for the little ones to the 
last, and, notwithstanding his bad health, lived to the 
ripe age of 80 years. 

He was a native of Kentucky, leaving home early 
in life, he carved his way, paddling his own canoe. He 
hauled with an ox team native lumber from the Wabash 
River to Lake Michigan to old Fort Dearborn, while 
the old fort was still standing, to Duild nearly the first 
houses in Chicago. The site of Ft. Dearborn is now 
marked by a big block of granite. I've stood by that 
stone and wondered how desolate was the scene in 
1812, and now, 100 years since, one of the great cities 
of the world has been built around the site of that 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

lonely place. It seems strange indeed that my children's 
grandfather was among nearly the first to furnish mate- 
rial to build the first houses in the great city of Chicago, 
which I predict in 100 years more will be the third 
largest city in the world. 

Mr. Stephenson moved to Missouri from Fountain 
County, Indiana, in an old fashioned, hand made, Ten- 
nessee ox wagon, with a great frame bed, as they then 
called the box. It took a block and rope, or about six 
men to put it on or off the running gear. He also later 
brought to this neighborhood the first thimble skein, 
Studebaker wagon ever seen in this part of Missouri. 

There were few better informed men in his day 
among non-professional people than Hiram Stephenson. 
He was well versed in ancient history as well as modern, 
was a great reader of current news and Biblical history, 
as well as the Bible. He appeared to be informed on 
almost any subject on which one would question him. 
I could nearly always learn something in a conversa- 
tion with him. 

His second wife raised a family of five sons (one 
little girl died while young), which are now scattered 
through the Western states, one, Crittenden, being 
dead. 

Hiram Stephenson was a good collector, but a bet- 
ter paymaster never lived in Shoal Township. Without 
an enemy, he passed away, and this short sketch is a 
tribute to his memory by James Williams. 

Midway Place, September 21st, 1911. 



CHAPTER 43. 



A BOY'S WILD RIDE— AN EXPERIENCE WITH 

WOLVES SIXTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. 
Along in the fall of 1846, my father was away from 
home preaching for a little flock of his church brethren, 
at Brother John Osborn's, afterwards known as Vic- 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

toria, in Daviess County, Missouri. There is not now 
a vestige left of that old town. 

Along in the evening on Saturday, my youngest 
sister, the baby a year or so old, took the croup (a very 
severe type of membranous croup), and no doctor nearer 
than Plattsburg or Maysville. Mother sent me for two 
of our neighbor women. They worked heroically with 
the little sufferer, but she grew worse. Mother turned 
to me, with the look of a mother over a dying child, 
and asked me if I could find the way across the prairies 
to Mr. Osborn's, where father nearly always stopped 
over night (John Osborn was the father of Judge J. J. 
Osborn, who for many years sold goods in Cameron, 
and now lives in Colorado Springs). I told her I would 
try it; I was then in my 12th year. 

I remember we had no saddle, and I had to make 
that 40 mile trip on a bare backed horse with an old 
qujit for a saddle. About sunset, I started on the most 
lonesome ride of my life; (there being but one house 
on the road until I struck the Grindstone Creek timber 
1/2 mile this side of Mr. Osborn's). I struck the old 
Grand River trail at Brushy Ford near the McCartney 
Spring, which was a noted campmg place of the emi- 
grants going north in great numbers to settle the tim- 
bered regions of the north Grand River country. I 
passed on at a lively pace over the trail where Cameron 
now stands, crossing the little creek half a mile east of 
old Uncle Billy Read's house, and, onward, till rounding 
the head of Long Branch on the high divide west of 
Mabel station on the C. R. I. & P. R. R. I was think- 
ing of the panther old Mr. Timothy Middaugh had killed 
down in the timber half a mile east of the road (I think 
this timber is now in Mr. Charley Wright's feed lot 
and pasture). This panther, the last and only one 
killed that I know of since I've lived here. Of course, 
I felt lonesome. 

99 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

"When at once there rose so wild a yell, 
Adown that dark and lonely dell, 
As if all the fiends from Heaven that fell 
Had pealed the banner cry of Hell." 

— Lady of the Lake. 

It seemed as though a hundred hungry, yelling 
wolves were on my trail. "I was mounted on a mettled 
steed, of the wild, untamed, Ukraine breed." With my 
right hand I held the rein; and with my left the horse's 
mane. 

My horse needed no urging; it seemed to be fright- 
ened, as well as I. We sped on, on and onward, like 
a winged arrow in its flight. I ever and anon looking 
over my shoulder expecting to see the whole pack with 
glaring eyes and lolling red tongues close on the heels 
of my tiring horse. How long or how many miles I 
pushed my horse, I do not know, when, (oh, horrors), it 
occurred to me that in my fright and flight, I might miss 
the dim wagon trail that left the great highway which 
led to the Iowa territory. Fort Des Moines, and beyond 
to **Terra Incognita." 

As good luck would have it, my horse seemed to 
know the route better than I, the horse having been 
over the road more times than I had, and so carried me 
safely to our goal, arriving just as the worshippers 
were getting home from the evening meeting. I lost no 
time in informing my father of the baby's dangerous 
condition at home, 20 miles away. Resting myself and 
horse, probably half an hour, we were on the way re- 
tracing that long lonesome road, arriving at home about 
two o'clock. The baby was better. In fact, was better 
than I was after riding 40 miles on a bare backed horse, 
and having the worst scare of my life. The father 
and mother, and most of those worshippers, have gone 
to that "bourne from which no travelers return," but 
the boy who made that wild ride, and the baby are still 
living. 

I now think there were no more than three or four 
howling coyotes, which can make a great deal of noise. 

100 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

My excited imagination did the rest, but I will say this 
incident on my memory, is like some great, lighthouse on 
the dim receding shores of time. 



CHAPTER 44. 



BLOODED CATTLE. 

The Duncan family of Clinton County, has been fa- 
mous for fifty years for its blooded, thoroughbred, 
short horn cattle. 

While I shall not go into the history of the business 
in the early days, I would respectfully refer any one to 
the History of Clinton County, page 387, for early his- 
tory of the business. I here add that I have had more 
or less acquaintance with nearly every name mentioned 
of those early enthusiasts for better blood. However, in 
this little work, I can mention only a very few. 

Stephen and his brother, Joseph Duncan, are the 
first short horn cattle breeders, who brought thorough- 
bred cattle to the north central part of the county. 
I knew those two gentlemen quite well in my young 
days, and I am glad to pay this small tribute to their 
memory. I've never in my long life, known two men, 
whose word was more implicitly relied upon, than 
Stephen's and Uncle Joe's was. A short horn from Uncle 
Joe's herd hardly needed a pedigree ; everybody knew he 
didn't offer anything which was not good. While I 
am not personally acquainted with his son, Joseph, Jr., I 
understand the mantle of the father has fallen on the 
son. I am somewhat better acquainted with Mr. H. C. 
Duncan than any member of Uncle Stephen's family, 
while I've had some acquaintance with all the brothers 
of this good family. 

I think I can truthfully say, that Clay Duncan has 
probably done more to disseminate good, blooded cattle 
throughout the West than any other one man in Clinton 
County, and, unlike trust robbers, has accumulated a 

101 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

gocd competence for himself, while at the same time 
he was a benefactor to all his patrons and the public 
generally, as well as a credit to the community in which 
his life work was cast. I have known Clay Duncan 
from boyhood. We both commenced handling stock 
about the same time, and I've had many deals with him 
in our younger days, and have never known him to 
swerve one jot from an agreement. 

He has always been a strong advocate of temper- 
ance and practiced what he advocated. So far as I 
know, all of those good Duncan families have kept the 
"faith once delivered to the saints," as advocated by 
Alexander Campbell, Moses E. Lard and other promin- 
ent leaders of the Christian Church. A pity it is that 
every community has not more of the Duncan kind of 
citizenship in it. 



CHAPTER 45. 



HOW NEAR I CAME TO BEING KILLED BY 
FALLING TREES. 

It would seem to one a little superstitious, that some 
good angel guardian had watched over me through my 
long, and to some extent, adventurous life, or I'd not 
be here telling about it at nearly 80 years of age. 

We had only one old log stable, our old round log 
house moved back for horses, when my father built the 
double hewed log house with double stack stone chim- 
neys, with wide fire places opening in each room, at 
that time thought to be just the thing for elegance, 
convenience and comfort, of course. Their cost was not 
in fuel, "wood", we called it, which was so plentiful 
it was (lots of it) burnt in great log heaps while clear- 
ing the first farms in the timber. 

It was in the winter of 1855 and 1856 we decided 
we wanted a better barn and stables than the old log 
house and log corn crib with driveway and wagon shed 

10* 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

between. However, these were a good deal better than 
some of our neighbors had, but we wanted a frame stable 
with some room above for hay. I made some plans and 
went to work hewing timber in our fine white oak woods 
tract for this building, and long about mid-winter 
there came quite a deep snow, probably 10 to 12 inches. 
As the O'Donnell water power saw mill (which I have 
mentioned before) was finished with a good prospect for 
plenty of water to drive the machinery, we decided to 
cut a lot of logs to finish our proposed barn. 

On a quite cold day, my brother and I were cutting 
down a big cottonwood tree about 40 feet to first limb, 
and nearly three feet in diameter at the stump. This tree 
stood nearly plumb, and one could hardly tell which way 
it would fall as it was in a low bottom and very little 
wind, so we chopped away watching the tree closely to 
see which way it would fall. I had selected a bunch of 
sycamore, small like trees, which had grown up around 
on old snag of a former tree which stood about 20 yards 
due north of the tree we were cutting. I was going 
to hide behind this bunch of trees, if the tree should 
fall to the south, to keep any frozen limbs from falling 
on me, as I was on the north side of the tree. It was 
so nearly balanced that every little breeze would seem 
to start it, first north then south. We kept chopping 
notwithstanding it appeared to be nearly cut off at the 
stump. It commenced cracking a little. On looking 
up at it to be sure which way it was going, it appeared 
to be going to the south. I told my brother to look 
out it was going south, and started for my little bunch 
of trees which stood right in line the way the tree was- 
falling. My brother, stepping back a few yards, on 
looking up at the falling tree, yelled, "Get out, the 
tree is coming on to you. 

Quick as thought, I jumped squarely to the one 
side, and had hardly gotten 10 feet away before the 
big tree crashed down, the big log body of the tree fall- 
ing exactly in the tracks I had made in the snow two 
seconds before, and smashing the little clump of syca- 

103 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

more trees, which I had started to get behind, into 
splinters, and, today, 56 years after, there is another 
clump of sycamores which have grown up where that 
big Cottonwood smashed those on that cold day. I can 
now show some boards which were sawed from that 
log, and the barn with several additions, stands just 
across the road west of my residence, in good shape, 
and looks as if it would stand 100 years yet, if kept 
dry. 

On another occasion, several years before this oc- 
currence, I was helping my Uncle William (Bill Wil- 
liams) cut some house logs in a little bottom just west 
of the big arch bridge across Shoal Creek, four miles 
south of Cameron. Just west of that is an almost perpen- 
dicular clifT, which is a sheer precipice of 100 or more 
feet, the highest in North Missouri, which I have seen. 
Our tree fell on another (a sycamore) knocking a limb 
off of it big enough to kill an elephant, which fell 
within two feet of me. Had it struck me on the head, I 
would never have known what hurt me. 

On another occasion several years after both of 
these escapes from being killed, I and many of the 
neighbors were helping Mr. John R. Miner (Uncltf 
Jack) to raise a big log barn or stable. The logs had 
been cut in summer time and pealed; they were hickory 
and awfully heavy and slick, and were about 20 or more 
feet long. Mr. Price Harlin and I, I think, were on 
the west corners carrying them up, as we called notch- 
ing and saddling the logs, a kind of rude dovetailing 
of them, to make them hold the building together. The 
young men of today won't understand what I am trying 
to explain, but the old fellows will. 

After we'd gotten the building nearly all up except 
one or two rounds, it got very high and dangerous to 
stand on those round, humpy, slick logs and chop. The 
most of the logs had been hauled on the highest ground 
on the east side, and were put up from that side by the 
men on the ground and rolled over with pike poles. 
The hump of a log was always left up when finished 

104 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

(if they were humpy, which these were). The log came 
rolling toward Mr, Harlin and me, hump, hump, hump, 
passing over the highest part of the side logs on which 
it was rolling and coming on to us. The men on the 
ground laughing and telling backwoods jokes, paid very 
little attention to the log and the few who were rolling it. 
It kept humping over and over; finally I got- ready to 
jump, for if it had rolled over twice more it would knock 
both Mr. Harlin and me off the building, and would 
probably have killed both of us, as it was a big log and 
about 20 feet to the ground, but it fortunately stopped in 
time to save us. I didn't notch that log down, nor any 
other at a public house raising. I came down and told 
that noisy, joking crowd just what I thought of their 
carelessness, and I've never carried up another corner 
from that time to this. However, I think that was the 
last house raising in the neighborhood and it was never 
finished, rotting down in war times, and a frame built in 
its stead. 

I am aware these stories are not very interesting to 
many. However, I give them as part of the experience 
of the pioneers, which is gone forever in this land. 



CHAPTER 46. 



THE OLD FASHIONED SPELLING SCHOOL OF 
SIXTY YEARS AGO. 

This little work would be incomplete without men- 
tioning our "spelling bees," which occurred usually in fall 
and winter time while the schools were in session. 

We had at that early day some excellent spellers 
judging them by the standard of Webster's Elementary 
spelling book, the old blue backed book, so dear to the 
hearts of the few of us now left. 

These spelling matches were usually held in some 
private, big, log house that had a great wide fire place 
with a rousing hickory log fire, if the weather was very 

105 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

cold; if it was not much cold, the boys and girls would 
sit close together so that they needed little fire. The 
door of those log cabins usually stood open in the day 
time to give light; there was ample ventilation through 
chinks and cracks when closed at night. Tallow candles 
were used in lighting them. 

The youngsters for miles around would all know of 
the spelling; they got the news then as well as now, if 
we didn't have telephones. When all were there (es- 
pecially the good spellers), they'd appoint a teacher, 
usually Mr. John S. Well, whom I have mentioned be- 
fore as being the best speller in the state, and I think I 
was right. No one was willing to spell on the opposite 
side if Mr. Wells was an opponent, so he good naturedly 
consented to pronounce the words and keep order. No 
trouble to keep order where love rules, and we all loved 
John Wells, and some of us would have liked to have 
loved one of his sisters, had she been willing. 

"In peace Love tunes the shepherd's reed, 

In war he mounts the warrior's steed; 

In halls in gay attire is seen, 

In hamlets dances on the green. 

Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, 

And men below and Saints above; 

For Love is Heaven, and Heaven is Love." — Scott. 

Usually two young ladies would "choose up", as 
we call it. These ladies always knew the good spellers. 
After many little "tete-a-tetes" and soft nothings being 
whispered in the ears of girls by their admirers, the lead- 
ers of each side would cast lots for choice of spellers 
(quite an advantage) by one of them taking a broom 
stick, or ramrod of some old gun (which was always 
present in those days), and, tossing it up, the other girl 
would catch it at any point she pleased, firmly in her 
hand, then they'd measure the length of that stick by the 
girl, who tossed the stick up, taking hold just above the 
other girl's hand, and vice versa until the top of the stick 
was reached, and the one having the top of the stick was 
expected to have firm enough hold of it to throw it over 
her head. In case there was any question raised about 

106 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

her having a very uncertain hold on it, the one having the 
last hold as described, got the first choice. 

Then every one present was expecting to hear the 
victor say, in her most pleasing voice, "I'll take Mr. Abe 
Smith," the other, "I'll take Mr. Hiram Wilhoit," then, 
"I'll take Mr. James Williams," but a few years later 
this choice would have been — "I'll take Mr. Abram Wat- 
son." I have omitted to say that some of the very best 
spellers of that day were away off to one side out of 
reach of most of those spelling matches, and were not 
very well known or first choice would have been, "I'll 
take Mr. T. J. McBeath", "I'll take Miss Elizabeth J. 
Stephenson." This good young lady died about the time 
these spelling schools were in the zenith of their popu- 
larity. She was the sister of the writer's wife. When the 
war came, they were abandoned, never to be revived. 

In this connection, I might be pardoned for narrating 
a spelling contest in which I participated during the win- 
ter of 1849 and '50, in Cass County, Missouri, near 
Pleasant Hill. I am not egotistical enough to parade my 
own acts before posterity more than to illustrate what 
tribulation, suffering and inconvenience of the pioneers 
of those days, who hungered for a little knowledge 
(called "book larnin' " by the old backwoodsman). 

As frequently stated before, my father died in the 
fall of 1848, and I was a good, big boy of 14 years and 
thirsting for a little of the rudiments of a common educa- 
tion; i. e., "Readin', spellin' writin' and 'rithmetic." My 
father had, at the time of which I write, three brothers 
and two sisters living in Cass County, from whence we 
had moved a few years before. Father's oldest brother. 
Uncle James, for whom I was named, and his oldest son, 
Luke, a family name for generations, came over to Clin- 
ton County to see how my mother was getting along, 
which was very poorly. However, she w^ould have en- 
dured any privation short of starving and freezing that 
her children might get a little elementary education, if 
nothing more. 

As there was to be no school at home that winter, 

107 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

Uncle James insisted, and mother finally consented, to 
let me go home with them. I think we had less than 
$5.00 in the house at that time. 'Twas November and 
very little had been raised that year, the first that we 
had tried farming since my father's death. I was nearly 
barefooted and had one every day suit of homespun and 
one for Sunday, no difference in quality of goods, only 
one was worn more than the other. I had an overcoat 
left by my father, which did good service that cold win- 
ter, keeping me from freezing in the little cold bed room 
in one corner of an outside porch, weather boarded with 
only split clap boards, as we called this split and shaved 
weather boarding. 

To make up for all our poverty, we had the courage 
of the Crusaders, and knew no such word as "can't." 
The day before we had set to start, my younger sister 
rolled down off a high pile of long fire wood and striking 
a sharp timber, cutting a vein came near bleeding to 
death. Frequently there were no doctors nearer than 
20 miles those days. Nearly all the older men, and 
women, too, had some practical ideas of surgery, such as 
stopping flow of blood by bandaging above the artery, 
but in this case no bandage could be applied, so we used 
cold water to clot the blood, and an ooze of oak bark for 
an astringent, which finally stopped the bleeding, or it 
stopped of itself, more than likely. 

To make matters worse, one of my Uncle's horses 
had jumped over out of the rail lot fence (everybody 
traveled horseback; no spring wagons or buggies then, 
only in the larger river towns). The horse swam the 
Missouri River at Blue Mill Landing, south of Liberty, 
and was caught by the ferryman, who remembered hav- 
ing crossed it ten days before. In a day or two sister 
was up running around, so mother gave me enough 
money to buy a pair of very cheap shoes at Haynesville, 
and sent my only little brother to help us as far as old 
Bro. Haynes, near Haynesville, when he returned to our 
desolate home and mother, to get through the cold win- 
ter as best they could. This left us with three men and 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

one horse and two saddles; we found out on that trip 
what "ride and tie" meant. In our case it meant walk 
most of the time, but we were elated when we found the 
horse with the good ferryman on the south side of the 
river at old Wayne City, or near there. 

I will mention that on this trip the second night out 
we stayed at a farm house, which was situated on the 
Blue Mill battle ground many years after. When on the 
battle ground the next day after the disastrous repulse of 
the Union troops, the writer recognized the buildings 
and surroundings, and my father camped near the same 
locality when moving here some years before. 

So we had two horses and no extra saddle to handi- 
cap us and only one footman in the bunch; we sure 
enough did "ride and tie" then, and made pretty good 
progress across the almost boundless prairie between In- 
dependence and Pleasant Hill, arriving at uncle's home 
one mile west of there a little after nightfall. And, oh, 
great grief! My uncle's youngest child named Wiley 
Bayley for old Uncle Wiley Bayley, who died a few years 
since in Pleasant Hill, had climbed up to the table and 
turned a pot of boiling coffee on himself and died in great 
agony within a few hours; he was buried when we got 
there. There were no telephones and only one commer- 
cial telegraph at that time reaching St. Joseph. 

I give all these particulars of this little trip that 
could be made now in a fev%7 hours without getting out 
of the cars to cross the great river, to show the great in- 
convenience we labored under at that time. 

My uncle had to move about three miles before 
winter set in, but had little plunder to move. I worked 
like a Trojan, helping all I could, so when they got 
moved, he being a pretty good selfmade scholar, got a 
school about three miles from the place he moved to, in 
his old neighborhood, agreeing to teach English gram- 
mar, which he had never studied a day in school in his 
life up to that time. His oldest son, Luke, also got a 
school near where his father had moved, the one I went 
to that winter and about which I am writing this m.e- 

109 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

morial. I now have in my possession letters from Uncle, 
James Williams, 40 years old, of as correct grammatical 
construction and as polished diction as could emanate 
from a William Jewel professor. 

My cousin, Susan Williams, a young woman yet at 
home, had attended an Academy (I think at Lexington), 
and was a good grammarian. She had for pupils at 
night her father and her cousin James, the writer of this 
story. Uncle kept away ahead of his scholars, they not 
dreaming that he was studying grammar as well as 
they. Now, my good readers, let me tell you all I know 
of English grammar I learned in that little backwoods 
cabin located within two miles of the town of Green- 
wood on the Missouri Pacific Ry. in Jackson County, 
Missouri. 

But I've wandered away off from that spelling con- 
test I commenced to tell about. Cousin Luke Williams 
was away ahead of any young man in the neighborhood 
in education, having attended several terms the Chapel 
Hill Academy, located, I think, at Clinton, Mo., and was 
competent to teach, either in town or country. He got a 
day school and boarded with an old and wealthy (for 
that day) farmer, named Jack Farmer, whose daughter 
Lottie he afterward married. 

In the beginning of his school, he bought a nice, little 
polyglot Bible, very fine print with gilt edges, which the 
offered to the best speller, or the one who quit at the 
head of the spelling class the most times during the 
term, I hate to say it, but there were more poor spellers 
to the square yard in that bunch of pupils than I had 
ever run across at one school. There were only two 
fairly good spellers in that lot of about twenty-five. I 
was one and that little, pretty sweetheart of Luke's, 
Lottie, the other. I didn't care very much for the little 
Bible, but was thirsting for glory, and knowing how it 
would please my good mother at home far away for me 
to come off victor, we worked like beavers. Lottie and I 
committed to memory every word of each lesson. Even 
then I knew what was the matter with Luke and Lottie. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

She wanted to please him, and no one could blame him 
for being pleased if she won. But Luke was too just a 
man for any partiality, so we had it nip and tuck, first 
one, then the other going around that class of dummies. 
I've seen that class of ten or twelve all miss a simple 
word, many of them not naming a single letter of the 
word; when the word would come to Lottie or me, it 
would be snapped up like a trout snapping a fly on a 
sportman's trailing hook. 

Neither of us missed a word in that contest. I came 
out victor, but I've since thought my victory was hardly 
a fair one, for this reason, we were usually tied. It 
was Lottie's time to be head the day she was sick. Of 
course, quitting head the day before, I had to go to the 
foot of the class. Oh, what fun I had turning down 
whole squads of big boys and girls. About the third 
round, I was at the head of the class and one mark ahead, 
and I never gave poor, dear Lottie any opportunity to 
get even. Had she not stayed at home that day, we 
would have been tied, then the test of good spelling 
would have come. 

Many years after the war, Luke being a cripple, 
having lost a leg at the terrible little fight at Lone Jack 
on the Union side, while I lived, a few years, south of 
Kansas City, I often thought I would go over to Pleasant 
Hill where Luke and Lottie lived. My intention was to 
take along the little Bible and invite (if any of the 
scholars of that school could be found) them to a spell- 
ing match. They were nearly all killed on one side oi 
the other of the great struggle, as I have learned from 
Mr. Gill of Dallas, Jackson County, Mo., who told the 
names of many that I recognized as members of that 
school. But with all my good intentions of giving Lottie 
another chance to win the prize, and her good, old 
crippled husband to act as schoolmaster as of old, alas, I 
put it off to'o long; they've both gone to their reward in 
the "better land". 

I and the little Bible, now in my possession, are all 
that are left of that school. Cousin Luke had also offered 

in 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

50 cents cash prize for the best progress in arithmetic. 
The mathematicians of that school, like the spellers, 
could not tell (many of them), what the sum of 2 and 3 
added together would be, so I had practically no compe- 
tition for that prize, and won it quite easily, thus carry- 
ing off the only two prizes offered. The only competi- 
tor at all was a younger brother of Luke, the teacher, 
"James Barker Williams, named I think, for the philan- 
thropist Barker, who ministered at Shawnee Mis- 
sion in a very early day. Some of the old buildings of 
that Mission are yet standing a few miles southwest 
of Westport, at that time the farthest west town in the 
United States, with possibly the exception of some of 
the towns in Texas. 

I had earned about 75 cents helping an aunt's boys 
gather corn during the Christmas holidays. She gave 
me 25 cents per day ; however we didn't hurt ourselves. 
Much of it couldn't be gotten around very fast on account 
of the high cockle burrs, her niggers and boys had allow- 
ed to get ripe in the corn. Niggers, cockle burrs and 
mules, at that time, seemed to be indigenous to Missouri 
soil. 

So, v/ith $1.25 I started home about the middle 
of February. Another Uncle, Charles Williams, took me 
to Independence one snowy, cold day, but the ice in the 
Missouri River had broken up, and was running in great 
chunks from a rod to a quarter of an acre in size, with 
thousands of lesser pieces grinding in the whirling eddies 
of that dangerous, muddy, swift running current. The 
ferry boat was an old flat boat with great long hev^n, 
wide timbers for side gunwales, probably 40 feet long, 
and propelled by side oars and poles in shallow water, 
with rudder oar in stern. 

It was quite windy all forenoon driving great ricks 
of ice in shore on the south side where the boat was tied 
up ; the ferryman lived at old Wayne City. I, one horse- 
man and two men with three yoke of big oxen, were 
waiting to be crossed to the north, or Liberty, side. 
Uncle Charles still waiting to see how I got across. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

The above mentioned cargo all got aboard of that 
frail old boat with no power except hand power, to com- 
bat the ice. The three yoke of oxen were coupled to- 
gether with big log chains, and were located in the mid- 
dle of the boat for ballast, one of their owners at their 
front to keep them from going forward, and by their great 
weight sinking the boat; the other man keeping ready 
for any emergency. "Weighing anchor," the boat swung 
into the rapid current and grinding ice floes, which would 
pile up against the gunwale. In spite of the heroic efforts 
of the ferryman with their pike poles, we drifted out to 
the middle of the current where most of the running ice 
was grinding fearfully. When I looked back to see if we 
were making any headway, horrors, we were, at least, a 
mile or more down the river below the place of landing. 
However, by the Herculean efforts of the ferrymen, we 
were slowly approaching open water where the ice was 
not so dangerous, and, finally, reached this comparatively 
still water. The ferrymen used all their power to go up 
stream the more than a mile to the only possible place 
the boat could land. It was a long time against the little 
current that was flowing toward the Gulf of Mexico. 

The boat finally reached water shallow enough for 
the ferrymen's poles to reach bottom to our great relief; 
we were yet quite a distance from the landing place, but 
no great distance from the bank. The oxen being restless 
from the long "voyage," one of the middle yoke got 
scared and tried to jump sideways out over the gunwale, 
rocking the old craft till it nearly dipped water. Seeing 
this I instantly took off my old shoes and overcoat, pre- 
paring to battle with the icy water for the shore, believing 
from watching the length of the poles that I'd not have to 
swim far before I could wade out, which was the case. 
They quieted the oxen, and the boat soon reached the 
landing place, and we all stepped on terra firma from 
what, had appeared, an hour before to be a watery grave. 
Those ferrymen were brave fellows even if they did have 
some whiskey in them. If they had not had, they would 
not have tried so dangerous an experiment. 

113 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

My uncle, seeing us safely ashore, waived me adieu, 
and next time I saw him was at his home near Lebanon, 
Oregon, 40 years later, where he and Cousin Luke's 
father died many years since. 

To finish this, to me, eventful trip, I put on my old 
shoes; about the only good in them was they kept the 
frozen, icy slush from cutting my feet. One advantage 
in them was, if they did let the slush in, the holes in 
them were so big and numerous they let it out again. 

After paying my ferry passage, I had 60 cents left. 
I walked to Liberty and paid 10 cents for a ginger cake 
and root beer; the 50 cents left, the good hotel man took 
and gave me a good supper, warm bed and breakfast, 
when I told him my story. I walked home to meet a glad 
mother, with the little Bible in my pocket, and I have it 
yet. "1 

February 2nd, 1912. 



CHAPTER 47. 



DREAMS. 



Whether I've inherited a little of the superstition of 
the South slave states' people, who have, for generations, 
been brought up with the ignorEnt and superstitious ne- 
groes, and in spite of all our higher learning, a little of 
these negro ghost stories still cling to them, I'll not try to 
explain, but I'll tell some of my own peculiar dreams 
which I'll never forget. 

In the fall of 1848 my parents visited their kin folks 
in Cass County. As we were to have no school that win- 
ter at home, my Uncle James Williams put at father and 
mother to let me stay with them and go to school as they 
had secured a first class teacher, and the schoolhouse was 
close by, so we could do a good deal of work nights and 
mornings. So they concluded to let me stay and I started 
in for the winter and the family went home. 

I had gotten a good start, and no boy ever tried much 

114 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

harder to learn than I did. I will say, when a boy I 
thirsted for learning, and had my father lived, I think I 
would have taken a college course, but fate decided 
otherwise. Somehow, when I took my father's hand 
when he bade me goodbye, telling me to help uncle and 
aunt, I felt bad; someway, it seemed this was to be the 
final goodbye, which it proved to be. 

Two or three weeks had passed, and I grew more un- 
easy and homesick, but studied hard and said nothing of 
my troubled mind. Finally, one night I dreamed that 
Uncle Bill Williams, who lived here in Clinton County at 
that time (he came to the county the same time we did 
six years before), came to the schoolhouse, saying he had 
come for me, that my father was dead, and I dreamed the 
same dream three nights in succession. These dreams 
were giving me no little trouble. 

There was in that neighborhood, strange as it may 
seem, a great, stalwart, dark complexioned man, whose 
name was Bill Williams, and who looked as much like 
Uncle Bill as twin brothers look like each other. This 
man Williams came to the schoolhouse one evening just 
as school was dismissed. I saw him up a little distance 
among some crab apple bushes hitching his horse, and 
jumped at the conclusion that he was Uncle Bill. Run- 
ning to him terribly excited, I called to him. "Uncle 
Bill, what is the matter at home"? He had never seen 
me, nor I him. I did not know there was such a man in 
the world. Seeing my mistake, I told him he looked like 
an uncle of mine of the same name; all the scholars 
laughed at my mistake. In a few days Uncle Bill did 
sure enough come and bring the tidings of father's death, 
telling me he'd come after me to go home, precisely as I 
had seen in my dreams three nights in succession. 

On another occasion, at the beginning of the war, I 
was engaged in shipping stock, and on a trip with two 
loads of cattle bought a little too high. I suffered a con- 
siderable loss, and was sorely pressed to know just what 
to do to make up my loss, which I felt so keenly. 

I had a good friend, Mr. John T. Jones, who had 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

nearly a car load of nice, fat, young cattle he wanted me 
to buy and ship, saying, "Ship them, James, at the price I 
make you and I'll stand any loss at that price," so it was 
"heads I win, tails, he lost," so I took the cattle, and 
picked up a few more to fill out a load. The night before, 
I was to ship next day, still having some misgiving as to 
the outcome of the venture (as I was too proud to allow 
my friend Jones to lose as long as I had anything) I was 
somewhat troubled, but finally slept and dreamed some 
one handed me six twenty dollar gold coins. On getting 
up in the morning and telling mother my pleasant dream, 
she said, "Good luck ahead of you son; always good luck 
to dream of gold and silver coins." 

The outcome of the deal seemed to justify mother's 
prediction. At any rate, I kept an accurate account to a 
cent of my expense on that trip. I will say I did not 
board at $5.00 a day hotels, or buy theater box seats, but 
when I got home, after everything was paid, I had ex- 
actly six $20.00 gold coins as profits, having been, at that 
time, paid in gold coin. 

I'll give only one more of these shaky looking stories. 
About ten years ago, I bought 80 acres of land south of 
Kansas City, on Holmes and 98th street roads, and moved 
part of my household plunder, my wife, and our oldest 
son, Wallace, and I living, or staying, there to "hold the 
fort." We wanted to sell as we were needed badly on 
the home place, and were pretty homesick, so one of our 
neighbors, B. F. LaForce, being in the real estate busi- 
ness, found a prospective buyer and wanted our price 
and terms, etc. I made him a gross and net price of 
dollars. 

The deal dragged along till about the middle of May 
before the interested parties all got back from a foreign 
land, and looked the place over. They'd been out on 
Saturday and took a final good look at it, and on Monday 
morning, I told my son, Wallace, I was not going to do 
any more work until the deal was either clear off, or 
consummated, telling him, at the same time, that I'd had 
one of his grandmother's good dreams the night before. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

I had dreamed that a man came to me holding in his 
hands a compact package of bank bills looking just like 
the $500.00 and $1,000.00 packages put up by the banks, 

saying, "Here is " naming the number of 

thousands of dollars it took to finish the deal, and hand- 
ing the package to me. So I went over to the city and 
up to LaForce's office to give him some further instruc- 
tions and commenced telling him, whereupon he said, 
"You are too late; the place is sold already, and we are 
ready for your Abstract of Title," and I didn't do any 
more work at Lonsomehurst Park. 

With these three examples of dreams which were 
fulfilled exactly as I saw them before, and two of them 
were told to friends beforehand, is it any wonder I ap- 
pear to have inherited a little of the old negro supersti- 
tion of our Southland people? While there are thousands 
of foolish dreams which never amount to anything, yet 
there seems to be psychological mystery about some of 
our dreams which may be made plain to us in the here- 
after. 

Another peculiar phase of dreams, in my case, at 
least, is, if I dream of scenes and incidents of early life, 
especially of my young lady associates, they never grow 
old. Their cheeks are of the roseate hue, and still hare 
the bloom of youth, though they may have been mould- 
ering in the grave forty years. 

Dreams, to me, are a mystery which will never be 
solved to my satisfaction this side of the tomb. 



CHAPTER 48. 



AN ALLEGORY. 

Sitting by my glowing stove fire one cold, dreary 
evening in November, my mind in a reminiscent mood, 
half waking, half dreaming of the past, all at once I 
heard the muffled sounds of hoofs, and the low rumbling 
sound of a vehicle passing in the street of a great city. 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

I looked and saw on the outside of the enclosed vehicle, 
the sign, "St. Mary's Hospital Ambulance." Within 
was a man holding in his arms a beautiful boy child 
about eight or nine years old, the golden ringlets hang- 
ing down over his face, deathly pale from the loss of 
blood. I also noticed two mounted police accompanying, 
one ahead to clear the way at crossings, the other as a 
rear guard of honor, which was a very unusual occurr- 
ence, and led me to question the policeman on his beat 
at a crossing, who gave me this explanation : 

The father of the little boy, whose name I learned 
was Jerry Flannigan, owned a high-toned saloon at the 
corner of 6th and Blank street. Mr. Flannigan was also a 
large asphalt paving contractor, and was on excellent 
terms with most of the city aldermen, and was a special 
friend of the city engineer. In fact, he gave his "bar- 
tender" orders not to spare the sparkling champagne or 
fragrant "Havanas" when any of these officials should 
patronize his guilded place of business. Jerry, like 
many modern doctors, was too astute a business man to 
pour much of his medicine down his own throat, hence, 
he kept a clear, cool head, and made money beyond the 
dreams of "avarice." However, he was always open 
handed and gave liberally to deserving charities, never 
turning a hungry person away from his door empty 
handed. In fact, was one of those warm hearted, bright 
business Irishmen, who make many friends and few if 
any, enemies. 

Jerry came from the Emerald Isle while a little boy, 
with his parents, sold newspapers morning and evenings, 
before and after school hours, and kept a savings account 
with a local bank. Arriving at manhood, he was a 
splendid looking man and well calculated to be very 
popular in the society in which he moved. At a social 
club function he was introduced to a bright, sparkling 
young lady of ancient lineage, which could be traced 
back to Knickerbocker days. Her father's ancestors 
were brewers of beer from time immemorial. 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

Her vivacity captivated Jerry and she reciprocated 
his soft advances, and in due time they were married at 
the Cathedral with a great throng to witness the cere- 
mony; the Bishop in sacredotal robes, altar boys holding 
waxen tapers the pipe organ pealing forth the wedding 
march. 

After the wedding festal days and honeymoon trip, 
Jerry's father-in-law suggested that the corner of 6th and 
Blank Sts., was a fine location for a saloon, and proposed 
to erect a palatial building and present this fine corner 
and building, free of cost to him (Jerry), provided he 
would keep a first class saloon in the building, telling 
Jerry there was a fortune in the business if properly 
managed and manipulated. While Jerry did not al- 
together like the saloon part, the alluring prospect of 
great riches decided him to accept of the gift, and he put 
in a fine bar and fixtures, hired a first-class barkeeper, 
who was an excellent judge of counterfeit money, so. 
crooks having green goods to shove could not pass them 
on his barkeeper. 

Things went on prosperously, and, Jerry not being 
needed, in fact, despised the surroundings of even a first 
class (so called) saloon, got a paving contract and made 
money. In the meantime, his bright young wife, al- 
though a club woman, after a time bore him a beautiful 
boy child, who was christened Edward, Eddy. Somehow 
this good lady had inherited from her ancestors the idea 
of her illustrious countryman. President Roosevelt, that 
race suicide, by whirling spray or other criminal, ques- 
tionable, means was not just the proper thing for a 
human being created in the image of her Creator, hence, 
she heeded the command in the beginning, "Be fruitful 
and multiply and replenish the earth." 

However, being a society lady, she turned over to 
Eddy's nurse a great deal of his training. Having two 
other children, bright little girls, to look after, Eddy did 
not get the attention she would really have liked him to 
have. Of course, her early training precluded the idea 
of her giving up her society functions, bridge, whist and 

119 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

other card and dancing parties, so the boy Eddy played 
with the street urchins till he would be tired, and being a 
little fellow and as smart as a whip, he would naturally 
drift into the saloon, where the barkeeper would pet and 
make much of him, as well as many of the fine business 
gentlemen who would caress him and give him money 
to buy candy and toys. As Eddy grew older, he went to 
the saloon frequently while out of school. 

Early in the Eighteenth Century, there came from 
Europe two families, the English one, whose name we 
will call Rivers (a fair type of the aristocracy of Colonial 
days) to Virginia, securing from the Crown a large tract 
of valley land. The other was of French Hugenot, cav- 
alier lineage, whose name we will call Jacques De Haven. 
Both families settled in the same rich valley about the 
same period. 

Tobacco having been introduced in England a cen- 
tury before by Sir Walter Raleigh, cargoes of tobacco 
were freely exchanged on the wharves at Jamestown for 
cargoes of slaves kidnapped by cruel Arab traders and 
sold to bad men engaged in the slave trade. Both these 
families vied with each other to see which could buy the 
most slaves and raise the most tobacco to buy more 
slaves and land, and a rivalry sprung up between these 
two wealthy, aristocratic families that existed from gen- 
eration to generation until the breaking out of the great 
Civil War, which freed their many slaves. However, 
these, like many other good people, treated their servants 
humanely and many of them remained on the old planta- 
tions, for many years, working the impoverished land on 
shares. Finally, the younger generations, like their 
yo.nng, white would-be masters, drifted to town and city. 
Many of the young men went west to locate, many to 
Kentucky, including representatives of the two old fam- 
ilies; they were usually sportsmen and frequently en- 
gaged in games of poker and drinking in high-toned 
saloons. 

Young Tom Rivers and John De Haven came near 
having a pistol exhibition at one of the great racing meets 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

at Lexington over a game of poker, but friends interfered 
and hostilities were ended without blood being shed. 
They shook hands across the bloodless chasm and 
pledged their ancient friendship over a bottle of spark- 
ling champagne and then and there agreed to go to a 
booming, lively city on the Missouri River and open up 
some kind of business to retrieve their waning fortunes. 
So they got letters of introduction to some first class, 
high toned society people and business men. 

On their arrival in this great city, they were feted, 
wined and dined by the bon ton of the city at a reception 
in their honor. Among many other beautiful and accom- 
plished young ladies, they were introduced to the spark- 
ling and ravishingly beautiful Beatrice Revington, whose 
raven hair glittered with jewels, and from whose white, 
tapering fingers flashed a thousand brilliant rays of cost- 
ly diamonds of the first water. Is it any wonder our two 
friends lost their balance and both fell in love with the 
brilliant Miss Revington, each trying to conceal from the 
other, the true situation. 

In the meantime, Miss R. divided her coquetish 
smiles on each in about equal quantities, as well as on 
many other of her special friends. Things ran on smooth- 
ly for a while until about city election time, both of our 
young friends being ardent Democrats, had nothing to 
fall out about politically, but having formed the acquain- 
tance of many north end politicians, who always met at 
Jerry Flannigan's saloon to discuss politics, champage, 
beer and whiskey, our friends concluded to have a little 
game of their old fashioned Kentucky poker. 

So, they called for a deck of much used cards (which 
like Jerry's beer and whiskey were always on tap for 
convivial occasions), they shuffled, cut and dealt furious- 
ly, first one, then the other winning, and in the meantime 
ordering champagne and drinking freely of the miserable 
counterfeit manufactured in some dark cellar of a north 
end wholesale liquor house. Finally, one of them ac- 
cused the other of stealing a card, or cheating, which was 
instantly resented by the other, both smarting with rival 

131 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

jealousy of Miss Revington's alluring smiles. Hot words 
passed, and finally, "You are lying and a coward beside," 
Instantly two shining revolvers were in sight ; one, miss- 
ing fire, its owner jumped aside as the other deadly 
weapon was discharged, missing the man for which it 
was intended, but hitting and fatally wounding little 
Eddy. The police rushed in and marched off to the city 
jail these hot, drink-crazed Kentucky bloods, but did they 
arrest Flannigan or his bartender for keeping a disorder- 
ly saloon or gambling house? Not a bit of it. Election 
was too near at hand; they did not dare to do it. 

When little Eddy arrived at the hospital, a consulta- 
tion was held by the surgeons in attendance. A majority 
was in favor of amputating the right leg above the knee, 
the thigh bone having been badly fractured by the un- 
lucky pistol shot. But father and mother pleaded hard for 
them to try to save the limb, to which the surgeons final- 
ly agreed, telling them that it was their (the surgeon's) 
opinion that amputation would inevitably have to be 
performed, when, in all probability, it would be too late. 
This prediction proved to be correct. In a short time 
signs of gangrene were noticed by the surgeon, who was 
constantly with little Eddy, and his almost prostrate 
mother and heartbroken father, who was continually up- 
braiding himself for having anything to do with the 
miserable saloon business. 

The surgeons skillfully performed the amputation, 
knowing, at the same time it would only hasten the hour 
of Eddy's dissolution. The hospital priest a good and 
holy man, performed the last sad rites of his church by 
administering extreme unction for the dying, just as 
though this church dogma would be of any benefit to 
that little child's immaculate soul, who had the Christ 
words, "Suffer little children to come unto me, for of 
such is the Kingdom of Heaven." 

Poor little Eddy's body was laid to rest in a snow 
white coffin amid the sublime burial service of thr Cath- 
olic church. His father and mother had the consolation 
of a Christian burial and a glorious Resurrection. 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

But what of the two miserable men, who, by that 
time, had sobered up and have had a preliminary trial 
before a magistrate, and are committed without bond for 
murder awaiting the action of the Grand Jury? Ten 
days later, the local morning paper came out with this 
announcement: "The Grand Jury empaneled to investi- 
gate the killing by pistol shot of little Eddy Flannigan in 
his father's saloon on .... blank day of October, . . . ., 
finds a true bill against one Tom Rivers and John Dc 
Haven for murder in second degree, saying in their report 
that the crime looked heinous enough for murder in the 
first degree, had it not been for the mitigating circum- 
stances that it occurred in a high toned saloon, beside 
the accused were drunk, hence, were not entirely re- 
sponsible for their acts." Besides, saloons were necessary 
to bring business to a town and revenue to pave streets 
and other great expenses of a great city full of graft and 
corruptable aldermen and other officials, and in this way 
the whole community suffers by crimes caused by 
licensing corrupt men to corrupt the body politic. 



CHAPTER 49. 



SOME PANTHER STORIES. 

I've never seen a wild panther, but the greatest fear 
of my long residence here was that a ferocious panther 
would spring off of some tree and tear me to pieces. I 
never could pass through the big woods, till I was nearly 
a grown man, after night without my hair nearly stand- 
ing straight up. If I was compelled to go through the 
woods in the night, I'd sing and whistle to keep my 
courage up, and scare the panther off. 

On one occasion, I had been across on Smith's Fork 
Creek to old Mr. Jonathan Stone's place, about two miles 
west of where Turney now is, on the Plattsburg and Far 
West road. I was hunting a yoke of oxen that my father 
had bought of Mr. Stone. Not finding them, after hunt- 

123 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

ing, until iate in the day, I would not have gone home 
that night for the oxen, and told the younger Stone boys 
so. About all we boys talked about that night was pan- 
thers, and the most of their stories were located on Shoal 
and our creek, then an almost unbroken, timbered coun- 
try for miles, and a few years before had a good many 
panthers prowling around and scaring women and chil- 
dren. However, I never heard of their jumping on any 
one, but we boys could supply that part by imagination. 
I stayed over night and got my nerves all strung up to a 
high tension by their terrific, blood curdling stories of 
how the panthers would scream like some strong voiced 
woman in despair. 

In the afternoon, I started home striking the timber 
near where the Harlan cemetery is now located. I fol- 
lowed the old Indian trail on nearly an air line from the 
cemetery to our house, now Midway Place. (There are 
a few fragments of that trail left to this day In the woods, 
that I can point out.) The evening was hazy and damp 
while riding along by the side of a lake about half a mile 
southwest of home. (The lake is now dry most of the 
season. All the great trees on the south and west of it 
have long since been cleared for corn fields.) Just as I 
was rounding the east end of the lake, a terrific scream 
was screeched over my head. Quick as a flash my horse, 
a fleet one, was at full speed on the path for home. I was 
scared so badly that I whipped the horse, making him 
jump the six rail fence in front of our cabin, telling my 
parents a panther had screamed at me in one of those big 
trees at the pond. 

Father, not knowing whether or not I had really 
heard a panther, took gun and dogs and went to our 
near neghbors. Price Harlan and Pleasant Stephensons, 
who went down to the lake, they and the dogs making a 
good deal of noise on purpose. Instead of a panther, they 
waked an old sleepy hoot owl, which gave them a sample 
scream, imitating a panther. So they left the old gentle- 
man to his cogitations. He was evidently meditating on 
a raid that cloudy evening on some near-by hen roost. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



I'll tell now about a sure enough panther scare near- 
ly fifty years later. I would not tell this story as no one 
would believe it, did not several people bear witness to 
what I am relating. I'll give the names of some of them, 
two of them, my hired men, are gone. The first man, 
who heard the terrific scream of my panther, was Mr. 
Fred Osman, who then lived on a place just at the top of 
Shoal Creek hill, south of big Arch Bridge, four miles 
south of Cameron. Fred told me a few days after that he'd 
heard panthers scream many times in the mountains of 
California. He hissed his dog, which was barking furi- 
ously in the direction of the bridge; it ran down and 
came back, Fred said, faster than it went, and awfully 
scared. He said it was a panther that he heard scream 
down by the bridge. This was the same evening, I and 
others, heard this stranger. 

The next parties who heard my panther were some 
colored people well known in Cameron, Mr. Aaron Bell, 
and one or two of his sons, who, at that time, were liv- 
ing on a tract of land owned by the late judge Virgil 
Porter, I had leased Aaron a small tim.bered bottom on 
Shoal Creek, just south of the mouth of William's Creek. 
It being a Httle after dark, they were burning brush, 
when, just a short distance north of them they heard an 
awful scream. Aaron told me a few days after — he said, 
"We stopped to listen and soon such a scream as we had 
never heard before arose." He said, "Mr. Williams, you 
ought to have seen these niggers git from thar', we didn't 
go back thar no mo' that night." 

I'll now give my experience with this pilgrim 
stranger. I'd that evening been to my farm now owned 
by Mr. Hutton, about one, one-half miles south from my 
home place, and started home about dark going straight 
through the woods due north of Hutton's house. I 
stopped a few minutes at Mr. Maddox's and Marion 
Newby's, talking a few minutes to each of them, then 
proceeding home. On arriving near the south approach 
of William's Creek bridge, at once I hear a terriffic scream 
just ahead of me, apparently 50 to 75 yards distant. It 



125 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

made the hair raise on my head. I thought if I had 
heard such a scream fifty years ago, I would have called 
it a panther. However, I picked up a good, big club and 
started, thinking it was only a big Tom house cat yowl- 
ing. I got on the bridge when another screaming yowl 
appeared to come from the middle of the road. I then 
decided I would see, if possible, the animal which was 
making such awful noise, and hurried up, club ready for 
business. He gave one more scream, probably 100 yards 
farther west and that was the last I heard him. How- 
ever, he'd scared my horses in the pasture until they 
were trying to break over the fence, running and snort- 
ing at a fearful rate. When I came on up to the house, 
all but one of the boys, including the two hired men, had 
heard the "varmint", and had gone out to see where he 
went. When I got home, the first thing they asked me 
was if I had seen or heard a panther down about the 
bridge as one of the hired men had lived many years in 
Southern Kansas near the Indian country, now Okla- 
homa, said that scream came from a panther, as he had 
heard panthers scream many times in the Territory. 
They all went to Mr. Newby's and Mr. Maddox's who 
kept a big pack of hounds. These hounds were put on 
his trail but could not be induced to follow it up. 

So this pilgrim stranger passed on, no one knowing 
whence he came or where he went. This occurred about 
twelve or thirteen years since. 

Midway Place, Dec. 19, 1911. 



CHAPTER 50. 



AN INVENTOR. 
The first cultivator in Clinton county was used on 
Midway Place, with a yoke of oxen and two plough boys. 
It has been said that "Necessity is the mother of inven- 
tion." Listen, while I tell you why and how I invented 
the first cultivator that would finish a row of corn as it 
went, but oh, what a finish ! 

126 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

What few horses we had took what was called yel- 
low water when we had worked our corn the second 
time; when we came to "lay it by," we had no teams 
except a yoke of pretty fast oxen. We had to do some- 
thing not to allow the weeds to take our crop. We had one 
old fashioned, wooden mould board, one-horse turning 
cary plow, right hand ; we also had an old, good, big one- 
horse shovel plow, neither of which would scour any 
more than a black oak log dragged in the road cross- 
wise. A revelation struck me. I took an ax, went to 
the wood close at hand and cut a forked pole about the 
size of our ox tongue in wagon, leaving each fork long 
enough to hitch plow by clevis and one or two links of 
chain to make plow a little flexible. 

I hitched the turning plow to left side, or fork of 
tongue and the old shovel plow to other or right end of 
fork, so hitching that yoke of oxen to that rude affair, 
we managed to scratch both sides of the corn row some, 
and had the distinction of being the original inventors of 
the cultivators, so popular for many years. 

However, we neglected to patent our invention, 
hence, will escape being prosecuted for a conspiracy in 
restraint of trade. 



CHAPTER 51. 



MISSOURI PRODUCTS. 

I think it appropriate that I should say something 
of Missouri products which I've seen come and go in 
my 73 years' memory of the Western border. Niggers, 
mules, hemp and "terbaccer," were the burden of con- 
versation at every log rolling and house raising in an 
early day, until the discovery of gold in California, when 
it shifted a little to mules, oxen and gold, but tobacco 
and whiskey, like the laws of the "Medes and Persians," 
were as unchanged as the laws of gravitation. Hemp, 
oxen and niggers in the sense they were then spoken of. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

have lapsed into a "quiet, inocuous desuetude." But the 
Missouri mule, tobacco, whiskey and the colored person 
are still with us. 

While many of us know exactly what to do with 
the three first articles, the latter is still an unsettled ques- 
tion in the minds of many. Many whose progenitors 
dealt in the above chattels, when I can first remember, 
are now dealing in poultry and eggs, benefiting them- 
selves and the public generally more than did their fore- 
fathers in the uncertain traffic in human chattels, even 
granting it was right from a humanitarian point of view. 

But these are not all of Missouri's glory. She is the 
birthplace of a Clemens (Mark Twain), of a Kit Carson, 
F. X. Aubrey, the telegraph of the plains, whose trips on 
horseback from Westport to Santa Fe in less than 100 
hours have never been equaled in history. The writer 
can well remember when Aubrey made these trips, al- 
though the exact date is forgotten. Missouri is the birth- 
place of General Sterling Price, and has been the home of 
the greatest military hero of all history, General Grant. 
Of a David R. Atchison, a Doniphan, a Benton, a Clark, 
a Daniel Boone, a David R. Francis; of John Sappington, 
Jas. H. Birch, Willard P. Hall, George Smith, Governor 
Woodson, Claiborn F. Jackson, of whom the writer many 
years ago, heard it told that he. Gov. Jackson, married 
three of Dr. John Sappington's daughters, one after the 
other, and when the last marriage took place, there being 
no more daughters for Claiborn to marry, the old doctor 
expressed his fear that if this last girl should unfortunate- 
ly die before her mother, Claiborn would want the old 
woman. I don't vouch for this being true, but will say 
I've swallowed many a dose of Sappington's pills, and 
have seen his medicine wagons, which distributed his 
quinine pills and collected at the same time. 

But I've gotten off from what I started out to write 
about, Missouri poets. Everybody knows that Indiana 
has its favorite poet, the author of "The Old Swimmin' 
Hole," and Jackson County, Missouri, has its poet laureate 
in the memory of "Rural Rhymes and Talks and Tales of 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

Olden Times" by Martin L. Rice. But Missouri had a poet 
in ye olden time, whose name, like the author of Arabian 
Nights entertainment, will have to go down to posterity 
unhonored and unsung, while his wonderful genius 
should go down the ages right alongside of Mark 
Twain's who must have called on him frequently to bor- 
row a meal, or, having let the fire go out in the fireplace, 
to get a chunk to kindle with, as they must have lived 
in close enough proximity for these early day neighbor- 
ly acts. 

My readers will already have guessed at the poetical 
production whose author is lost (so far as I know) to' 
posterity. I mean, "My Name It Is Joe Bowers," and 
lest the Interstate Commerce Commission should en- 
join a Louisiana Tobacco Co., as to sending this immortal 
poem, descriptive of Joe's woes, as wrappers around their 
(Missouri) plug, and thus cut it off from coming gener- 
ations, I thought I'd better give it a place in my little 
book, which certainly should give it a niche in the 
Temple of Fame, and be valued highly as Missouri's 
James Whitcomb Riley. 

By the courtesy of Hon. David Ball, of Louisiana, 
Mo., I have been presented with a copy of the original 
"Joe Bowers," from which I am transcribing for the 
benefit of Missourians, who sometimes have to see a 
thing before believing it. 

There were some things in vjar and militia days that 
would make a heathen idol laugh, or almost provoke 
manslaughter or suicide. I regret I have to say that I, 
sometimes almost wished, no — not quite that bad, but 
I believe at that time I would not have tied any crepe 
on my arm had we gotten into a skirmish with the bush- 
whackers and a few of our card playing, lazy, rollick- 
ing, noisy, dirty mouthed fellows, who were no good 
in or out of camp, had gotten killed. They'd lie around 
all day when they could be of any service and when 
night came, they'd get out an old, filthy deck of cards 
and game till nearly midnight, then three or four of them 
would sing "Joe Bowers", all in a different key and keep 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

every decent man awake. When time came to get up 
they'd be dead asleep and unfit for anything but finding 
fault with somebody else. Was it any wonder then that 
decent men despised such rollicking fellows? 



THE BALLAD OF JOE BOWERS. 

My name it is Joe Bowers, 

And I've got a brother Ike; 
I came from old Missouri, 

And all the way from Pike. 
I'll tell you why I left there, 

And why I came to roam, 
And leave my poor old mammy, 

So far away from home. 

I used to court a gal there. 

Her name was Sally Black; 
I axed her if she'd marry me, 

She said it was a whack. 
Says she to me, "Joe Bowers, 

Before we hitch for life, 
You ought to get a Uttle home 

To keep your little wife." 

"O Sally, dearest Sally, 

Sally, for your sake, 
I'll go to California 

And try to make a stake." 
Says she to me, "Joe Bowers, 

You are the man to win, 
Here's a kiss to bind the bargain," 

And she hove a dozen in. 

When I got out to that country 

1 hadn't nary red; 

I had such wolfish feelings, 
I wished myself 'most dead. 

But the thoughts of my dear Sally 
Soon made these feelings git, 

And whispered hopes to Bowers — 
I wish I had 'em yit. 

At length I went to mining. 

Put in my biggest licks; 
Went down upon the boulders 

Just like a thousand bricks. 
I worked both late and early, 

In rain, in sun. in snow; 
I was working for my Sally — 

'Twas all the same to Joe. 

130 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



At length I got a letter 

From my dear brother Ike; 
It came from old Missouri, 

All the way from Pike. 
It brought to me the darndest news 

That ever you did hear; 
My heart is almost bursting. 

So pray excuse this tear. 

It said that Sally was false to me, 

Her love for me had fled; 
She'd got married to a butcher. 

And the butcher's hair was red. 
And more than that, the letter said 

(It's enough to make me swear), 
That Sally has a baby, 

And the baby has red hjiir. 



CHAPTER 52 



A TRIP TO LAWRENCE, KANSAS, IN 1860. 

At first glance, people nowadays will smile when I 
commence to tell about a trip which looks so uninterest- 
ing, a trip which can now be made without getting out 
of a car within four or five hours, with no more than 
the ordinary risk of railway travel. Not so, then, 
however. 

The first shipment of stock I made over the H. & 
St. Joe Railway was to Chicago in the summer of 1860, 
which consisted of one car of cattle. We had to un- 
load at Hannibal and ship on a big ferry, operated, I 
think, by the C. B. & Q. Ry. to connect Chicago and 
eastern traffic with the Hannibal & St. Joe Ry. We 
always fed at Quincy, where, at that time, were ca- 
pacious feed yards and a good market for stock, cattle 
and hogs and fat cattle, as well, as New York shippers 
who would ship east direct via the Wabash not going 
via Chicago. 

The season of 1860 was the greatest drouth that 
Western Missouri and Eastern Kansas had seen to that 
day, or to this, for that matter, but Illinois had a fine 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

corn crop, as was that year on the vast prairies of Cen- 
tral Illinois about Augusta, Galesburg and farther north. 
I learned while at Quincy that stock hogs were wanted 
badly to eat that big corn crop and we wanted to sell 
our long nosed razor backs just as badly, so I came 
home and wanted my brother to go in with me and buy 
stock hogs to ship to Quincy. I think now, he was 
afraid of the venture and I tried a load on my own 
hook and made a little money, which looked mighty big. 
to us at that time, so he went in with me on the next 
load which we bought on Shoal and Smith's Forks! 
Creek. We had those long nosed, gaunt wind splitters 
delivered at Mr. John Bedford's place on the divide be- 
tween Shoal and Smith's Forks creek, out on the high 
prairie about three miles south of where the town of Tur- 
ney now is, and there was only one house directly on 
the road from Bedford's to Osborn (Judge Thomas E. 
Turney's). 

We gathered most of the hogs one afternoon, but 
all did not get in before noon the next day, but those 
that did get in put in the whole time in pugilistic exer- 
cises getting acquainted with each other. After all 
were in, it was noon, and we three of us ate dinner with 
Mr. Bedford (who at the time was digging a well). He 
proposed that he and his hired man would help us start 
that motley, long legged fighting lot of stock hogs. We 
had along a water wagon with three or four barrels to 
haul water to keep the hogs from dying with heat while 
on the dusty road to Osborn. When Mr. Bedford got back 
home, that well which was then about 30 feet deep, had 
caved in from top to bottom with the digging tools in 
it, and they are probably in it to this day as they were 
never dug out. The hired man told me afterward that 
he would have been in that well with the tools had he 
not gone with us to help start the hogs. 

Nothing further occurred worth telling ; we got the 
hogs to Quincy all right selling them at a nice little 
profit, but the trouble was, there was no more stock 
hogs for sale in our vicinity. Clay Duncan, George 

18> 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

White, Dick Kelly and everybody else, had gotten on 
to the Quincy racket and grabbed up the last razor 
back in sight, and that was why I struck for Lawrence. 

Today an American would be safer in Afghanistan, 
Beloochistan, or Teheran in Persia, than a border Mis- 
sourian in Lawrence in 1860, and I knew it with the ex- 
perience I'd had on the steamer, "Star of the West" at 
Lexington, Mo., three years before, but I heard there were 
lots of hogs (and no corn) up the Kaw Valley which 
could be gotten for a mere trifle, if the buyer would pay 
well for hauling in wagons those thin stock hogs to St. 
Joseph or Atchison. So, taking along all the money I 
could rake together, between $300.00 and $400.00, away 
I went for Lawrence, not knowing that, after leaving 
Leavenworth City, which, at that time, appeared to be 
the coming city of the Missouri River, a few miles out 
it was all Indian Reservation nearly to Lawrence. I 
found out something on that trip. 

I rode horseback, or in wagon to Plattsburg, then 
struck west on the Union Mill, or old Estill Mill and 
Weston, Leavenworth road, and found transportation a 
good part of the way in wagons going in the right di- 
tection, and reached Leavenworth the next day about 
3 P. M. Eating a lunch, I started for Lawrence on the 
stage road in a southwesterly direction till I came to a 
little creek. I think its name was Little Stranger, where 
was located the stage relay station and a primitive road- 
side house of entertainment, the last and only place a 
white wayfarer could stay over night between the two 
towns. The balance of the way, I learned, was still an 
Indian Reservation nearly to Lawrence. I don't know 
whether it was the Delawares or Pottawatomies, who 
were still there. 

After staying at the stage relay over night, I start- 
ed early next morning, not waiting for the Leavenworth 
stage to pass, thinking I could earn money pretty fast 
by walking, the stage fare being 10c per mile. I pushed 
on in dust shoe top deep, with no signs of civilization 
by the wayside. Along about 10 o'clock, I noticed, on 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

looking back, a cloud of dust rolling along. When a 
little breeze cleared the dust away, I could see coming 
on a swinging trot and gallop, the big 6 horse Concord 
stage full of passengers, swinging from side to side, 
rapidly approaching, giving me very little time to decide 
whether I'd hail the driver and take passage. But 
the 10c a mile caused me to try the dust afoot, not 
knowing what I had ahead of me and thirty minutes 
after he had passed, I was rueing it that I was not in 
that stage. 

Trudging along in that hot, desolate road, I began 
to suffer for water ; no houses and all the little branches 
dry. How I wished I was back home, but was too de- 
termined to find out about those imaginary cheap hogs 
to take the inbound stage, which passed me going to 
Leavenworth about 11 o'clock. Luckily, I met a man 
who told me of a deserted Indian shack on ahead a 
half mile, by the road side, where he said there was a 
dug well walled up with stone, but nothing with which 
to draw the water. On arriving, I found the well as 
he said. It seemed I was perishing for water, so down 
the well I climbed on the wall, bracing my feet firmly 
in a chink of the wall. I dipped water with one hand, 
a sup at a time, till the good water and cool well 
quenched my burning thirst, drinking again and again. 

I climbed to the top refreshed and continued my 
tramp, but soon wanted water again. On coming to a 
forest of fine open timber on a good big creek, (they 
called the creek Big Stranger), I noticed a good, big 
two story white house, (the only good house on the 35 
mile road at that time). I went out to it (it stood in 
the woods 100 yards or so from the main road). On 
approaching, a dark complexioned white man, with a 
Colt's revolver buckled around his waist, was just com- 
ing from the house to the road. I accosted him and' 
asked if I could get a drink of water at the house. He 
said I could, but the people were Indians, so I passed on 
thinking that, Indians or not, they could not look uglier 
than he did. He had a sinister, cut-throat look that 

134 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

made me almost shudder, and yet I believe, if he had 
known I had on my person $350.00, I'd not now be writ- 
ing this story. 

I called on the Indians; I think they were half 
breeds from general appearances, got a drink of good 
water and dallied there a spell, hoping the sinister look- 
ing chap would disappear, which he did to my intense 
relief. 

Onward again several miles and I was wanting wa- 
ter again, as well as dinner, which latter was out of the 
question. I was told I could get water at Tonga's vil- 
lage, which was a few log huts by the wayside near a 
little creek. On arriving, I went to the best looking hut 
and found a middle aged Indian with nothing on his per- 
son but a long loose blouse or shirt, with two little In- 
dians fanning him. I'll try to tell just how the Indian 
Chief, Tonganoxie, looked, the only Indian Chief I ever 
saw. 

He was a great big fellow and looked as though he 
had been for years a staunch customer of "Blatz," 
"Goetz" or "Schlitz," however, none of these three names 
so famous in the history of certain cities had been heard 
of then, in the West, so I'll have to clear Tonga of being 
a beer guzzler and pass on to the ferry at Lawrence. 

The great Bowersock Dam across the Kaw had not 
been built then; I think the question of damming the 
Kaw had been discussed some even at that early day, 
but it was lost sight of in the slavery agitation, which 
was at that time rending the country. Many years after 
the war it was revived, resulting in the great dam and 
Bowersock Milling Co. and probably some other in- 
dustries. I think it was the original intention of those 
New Englanders to make a western Lowell of Law- 
rence, but they had not taken into consideration that 
Lawrence was located too near the short grass, wild 
West on two sides, and poor old, moss-back Missouri on 
another for a successful manufacturing town. 

I stayed in town that night and selfpreservation, if 
nothing else, made me keep my ears open and mouth 

135 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

closed. While I detested the institution of human 
chattels being bought and sold on public auction blocks, 
as I had witnessed a few times in Clinton County, at 
the same time, I didn't like to hear their anathemas of 
all Missourians, which I knew to be unjust, having lived 
among these people all my life; so turn which way I 
would, I was between two fires and kept still. 

Along in the forenoon of the next day, I noticed a 
wagon coming in from the east, and I accosted the two 
nice looking men asking if they were farmers. They 
said they were and lived a few miles southeast of town 
near the Waukarusha Creek, at or near where there had 
been a little village, Franklin, started and abandoned. 
Telling them what I was looking for, it being Saturday, 
I asked to accompany them home and if I could stay 
over Sunday with them and get them to help me to get 
up some hogs, if they could be found and delivered on 
the Missouri River so that I could get them to trans- 
portation. They readily assented, at the same time tell- 
ing me that there were a good many stock hogs they 
thought could be bought, but getting them to St. Joe 
was the trouble, which proved true and I soon aban- 
doned the idea of getting any. 

Staying over Sunday, I learned these nice people 
were Presbyterians and would have preaching in their 
good, big house, so I was pleased that I had fallen in 
with such good people. I liked them a good deal better 
than I did the Lawrence town politicians. I could not 
help but think of some home Presbyterian people I had 
known since boyhood. The preacher arriving, I sur- 
veyed him pretty closely. I think he'd gotten wind 
that there was a Missourian in his audience from some 
remarks he let fall which were not calculated to flatter 
me much. However, I was in "Rome" and was trying 
to "do as Rome did," and came out unscathed. His re- 
marks were bitter, but scholarly and not calculated to 
give comfort to one hailing from a slave holding com- 
munity. It was not to be wondered at much, for with- 
in a stone's throw, a year or two before, there met in 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

conflict some of old John Brown's adherents and their 
enemy, the border ruffians, and the little cabin in which 
one or the other of the belligerents took shelter was full 
of bullets fired by their assailants. I was so full of 
patriotic zeal, that I secretly endorsed what he said 
against the institution of slavery, but somehow, even 
then I didn't like to hear Missourians denounced. I did 
not know quite as much then as I learned later on. 

There was a big camp meeting going on up at Bald- 
win City at the time, so I went up there with my good 
hosts. I think there was a good, big college there then, 
which has developed into Baker University. My good 
friends, to whom I had confided the fact that I was on 
the side of the old Flag, come what might, seemed to vie 
with each other in kindly treatment, and I bade them 
good bye at Lawrence. I didn't relish making any more 
money by walking back to Leavenworth over that hot, 
dusty road ; it was bad enough in that big Concord coach. 

I crossed the river, walked out 5 miles to an uncle 
by marriage, Mr. A. V. Baldwin, one of the Shoal Creek 
pioneers. He was an awful noisy, pro-slavery man and 
wanted me to drop the hog trade and go into the busi- 
ness of buying and selling slaves. He could not have 
made a proposition more repulsive to me than that one, 
and I told him so. I had already within the few years 
just preceding, seen enough to believe a storm, the like 
of which no one in the United States had seen, was brew- 
ing and told him my opinion of the brutal traffic, and 
left him to see him no more. His long tongue and noisy, 
overbearing attitude to those not agreeing with him, got 
him in trouble in war time. He was arrested and taken 
to Fort Leavenworth and thrown in prison. He there 
contracted cold and disease from which he never recov- 
ered, and died leaving my aunt and a lot of girls to 
battle for existence with the cold charities of a selfish 
world. 

And he didn't own a single slave. All that froth 
and noise was to maintain his rights and he was only an 
example of thousands of others at that time. 

137 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



CHAPTER 53. 



THE TRAGIC ENDING OF FOUR OF 
THE BEATTY FAMILY. 

My mother's maiden name was Beatty, and three 
of her brothers and one sister met tragic deaths. 

In a very early day there moved into Caldwell coun- 
ty, near Mirabile, a man whose name was Wesley Hinds, 
who was a brother to my mother's step-mother, who 
was mother of Alexander Beatty, who was shot down in 
old Far West about 72 or 73 years ago. 

There was an election on hand in which, I think 
Wesley Hinds was offering for •office, and there was in 
the county a man named "Bogart," who, it seemed, was 
greatly opposed to Mr. Hinds, so at the election, Mr. 
Bogart was either drinking, or was a very overbearing 
braggart, as was claimed by his opponent. Bogart pub- 
licly boasted that he could whip Wesley Hinds, or any 
of his friends, when Beatty, not liking to hear his Uncle 
bullied in that manner remarked that he was a friend of 
Mr. Hinds, and was ready to take Hind's part, or place-, 
whereupon Bogart called him a liar and a coward (I 
think). Beatty instantly struck at Bogart, whereupon 
he threw up his left hand fending off the blow, drew a 
derringer and fatally wounded Beatty, who died the 
night following. 

Bogart mounted his horse and rode off in the excite- 
ment which followed, passed his own home, mounted on 
a fine saddle animal and pushed for Texas. He was seen 
in Clay county by a party who knew him, but never 
seen thereafter, fleeing, as many renegade murderers did 
at that time, to the great unexplored land, conquered re- 
cently by Sam Houston, David Crockett and other brave 
Americans, and was never brought back to face the 
brutal crime he had committed. My Uncle Beatty was 
buried on the old Smith Adams' farm about 2 miles 
southeast of Judge Wallace's farm. 

My mother had another brother, James Beatty, 

138 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

killed in the vicinity of Mirabile. He, in his young days 
in St. Louis, had, by overstudy (was preparing for the 
Bar and had the name of being the brightest scholar in 
his school) contracted a hard spell of typhoid and ner- 
vous fever and when he began to get better, it was 
noticed his mind, as well as body, was a wreck from 
which he never recovered. He stayed with his step- 
mother and half brothers and sisters, and came with them 
to Caldwell County, and was finally a county charge after 
they went to Oregon. The court hired a Mr. John 
Mabie to keep and take care of him. He was so 
badly paralyzed in his lower limbs at times he could 
hardly walk. Mr. Mabie moved from one farm to an- 
other. One cold morning in March, with Jimmy (as 
every one called him), he had the wagon piled high with 
household furniture and the helpless old man on top, 
when the wagon struck some obstruction, throwing him 
off and hurting him so badly that he died within 24 
hours. Before dying, an old boyhood friend was sent 
for, (Mr. Colson Davis) and he told us a good many 
years after, that Jimmy's mind was as clear as any 
man's with whom he ever talked. He said no man could 
feel the way he did and live. He said he was going 
home to a better world. That ever since that sickness 
his mind had been clouded, but all was clear now. 
"This hour of Death has given me more 
Of reason's power than years before; 
For as these sobbing veins decay, 
My frenzied visions fade away." 

(Lady of the Lake.) 

He died the following evening and I think is buried 
by the side of his half brother, Alexander, in that lonely, 
neglected Potter's Field. 

On the death of Mrs. Margaret Ruble, a sister, near 
McMinnville, Oregon, about 30 years ago, Mrs. Eliza- 
beth Kimsey, another sister, while attending the funeral 
was thrown from her buggy and hurt so badly that she 
died a few days after. 

A full brother of these ladies and Alexander Beatty, 

130 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

was Joseph Beatty, who went to Nebraska awhile after 
the closing of the war. On his way to town one day, his 
team ran away, throwing him out of his wagon, hurting 
him fatally, and he too, died from that disaster, making 
one full, and two half brothers and one half sister of my 
Mother's who met violent deaths. 



CHAPTER 54. 



CATCHING WOLVES IN AN EARLY DAY. 

There were lots of wolves here in an early day, as 
well as a few at present. The second year here, we all 
kept a few sheep and a fat mutton chop was a favorite 
dish of those big, grey and black villains, called timber 
wolves, as well as the small coyotes or prairie wolves. 
Settlers would set big, spring steel traps, with jaws 
nearly strong enough to hold a bear (it took two 
men to set them). If one lone man had accidentally 
gotten caught in one of them, he'd have had to carry 
it home for relief; he could not have gotten out of its 
terrible jaws without help. 

The wolves were too cunning to be very often 
caught in those traps, so we made what we called, wolf 
pens, which were constructed by splitting little poles 
about 6 inches in diameter and about 8 feet long, build- 
ing a pen about 3 feet high and 4 feet wide by 8 feet 
long, flooring the pen to keep his wolfship from digging 
under. We'd then take enough of those split poles to 
cover the pen, taking care not have very big cracks be- 
tween. The pen being nicely covered, we'd then take 
a piece of split pole, turning split face down like a batten 
on an old fashioned door, but about 18 inches longer 
than the pen was wide. We'd pin that batten with 
wooden pins (iron bolts and big nails were not to be 
had then) through each slat of the lid (top of pen), 
rounding the projecting ends of this rear batten to serve 
as hinges by inverting a forked, small pole with both 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

ends of fork same length being sharpened and driven 
firmly in the ground so as to hold the back end of cover 
from slipping back, or sideways, when front was in like 
manner battened, and raised high enough for wolf to 
jump into pen from front. This heavy hinged top was 
raised and set on big triggers with piece of beef or deer 
meat, usually the latter, and if Mr. Wolf, big or little, 
ever got in that pen and aimed to carve that venison, he 
was a goner. 

We often caught them by running them down with 
strong horses and hounds, when the snow was very 
deep and soft. Some of the early pioneers would keep a 
pack of hounds, and had lots of fun (they said), chasing 
them. I never was personally along in more than about 
two of those long chases, and we got the wolf. We also 
got awfully cold, as well as about as hungry as the 
wolves we were chasing. When we got home I could 
not see where the fun came in. 

I remember we got up one morning in winter, and 
while I was making a fire in the fire place (we had no 
stoves then and our overshot well was dry and we had 
to carry water from a little branch west of the house), 
mother and my little brother had taken wooden pails of 
that period and started before daylight to the branch for 
water. They got down west about 100 yards and broth- 
er, being ahead, a great big, grey wolf reared up just a 
few yards ahead of him. Instantly he blazed away at 
the wolf with his water pail. Mother was just behind 
and both holloing, scared up another big, black looking 
animal and both ran off, mother and brother running to 
the house out of breath. We didn't get breakfast very 
early that morning. The two big wolves had killed sev- 
eral of our little flock of sheep and were gorged with 
mutton and blood; they might easily have been run 
down and killed had we been equipped with dogs and 
good, fast horses. Such occurrences as this were com- 
mon in those days. 

Midway Place, Dec. 23, 1911. 

Ml 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



CHAPTER 55. 



FAR WEST SEVENTY YEARS AGO. 

In trying to tell how Far West, the old Mormon 
town looked, the first time I saw it in 1842, I regret that 
I have no daguerreotype or photograph to assist me in 
describing its lonely desolation. Its glory had departed 
with most of its, at one time, 3000 inhabitants. 

I think the first time I was in the old town was at 
a Fourth of July celebration in 1842, the first I was ever 
at, but I can remember it as well as if it had been yes- 
terday, and how the principal managers l-ooked and act- 
ed. The marshal's name was Branch and he wore a black 
broadcloth coat, which made a great impression on me. 
I was told that cloth was made in France and mother 
had been telling me about the Marquis De Lafayette, 
the great, good Frenchman. I think that was one rea- 
son I was so impressed with that black coat. Miles 
Bragg was his assistant and Volney Bragg, the first 
lawyer I ever saw, was the speaker, who read the 
Declaration of Independence very impressively. I don't 
remember his speech. Of course, it was along patriotic 
lines. 

There was a long ditch and some slick looking 
niggers roasting the beef, which was very fine, I remem- 
ber. At the head of the long table, which was a scaffold 
under a brush arbor, was seated a very old man, whose 
name was Benjamin Middaugh. I think this old man 
served in the War of 1812 and was the father or brother 
of old Timothy Middaugh, who lived many years about 
two miles east of Cameron and I think was the grand- 
father of the family of Middaugh brothers near Mirabile. 
The long table was located a short distance north and, 
I think, a little east of the old Temple excavation, which 
at that time, was nearly intact, and the great corner- 
stone lying in the bottom. I have been told by those 
who w^ere on the ground that it took 14 yoke of oxen 
to haul it. I've not seen it for about 40 years, but am 

142 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

told that most of that big rock has been carried away 
for souvenirs by the faithful Saints. 

When I first saw Far West, many of the smaller 
frame houses had been moved away for farm buildings. 
A good many of the larger buildings had been torn down 
and rebuilt after removal, hence, the houses left stand- 
ing were dilapidated, old looking, unpainted structures, 
many of them two stories high. They were nearly all 
frames with poles flattened on two sides for studding, 
and split native timber for lathing and weather board- 
ing The boarding was usually 6 feet long, sap taken 
off, gauged and shaved, which made a good, substantial 
building. The boarding usually was of big bottom bun- 
oak, the best timber on Shoal and Log Creek. The 
town was situated on a divide between those two creeks, 
and had the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railway run up 
Shoal Creek (as was talked of). Far West today would 
be the biggest town between St. Joseph and Chillicothe 
instead of Cameron. 

Not only that, there is but little doubt that in place 
of a desolate waste, the Temple lot would have had a mag- 
nificent temple, and Far West would be the "Mecca" 
of the pilgrim Saints, as Independence is today. The 
best church building in Independence today is the fine, 
brown stone on a high ridge along the Kansas City 
Electric line. The only Mormon I ever heard preach 
was in that building a few years since and I am free to 
admit, I think was about as good a sermon as I 
ever listened to, with a few exceptions. If people will 
live up to the exhortations of that good man, I think it 
will matter little whether they think Smith, Rigdon, 
Pratt, Whitmer, Cowdry, or anybody else were inspired, 
or the Book of Mormon a Revelation. 

I knew David Whitmer quite well when I'd meet 
him in Cameron. He was an up-to-date farmer, and pur- 
chased the first two horse corn planter ever unloaded 
off the cars at Cameron. I think I, and some other by- 
standers, helped him put it in his wagon. I remember 
the wheels of that planter were wooden drums. Mr. 

143 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

Whitmer moved to Richmond some thirty years ago, and 
died there. I think the Whitmer family own the old 
Temple lot, which is now on the old Whitmer farm, as 
I am told. 

I have never seen Oliver Cowdry, but have seen 
'0(ne of his daughters, who was pointed out to me at 
church many years ago. She was visiting in the vicinity 
of Far West. It was at old Plum Creek school house I 
saw her. She was strikingly handsome. I do not know 
whether she is yet living. It is not the province of this 
article to discuss whether Latter Day Saints as a church 
organization is good or otherwise, but I'll say this, I've 
been familiar with and a neighbor to them for nearly 
seventy years, and from what I've seen of those in Mis- 
souri, I think they've hardly had fair treatment, inas- 
much as our laws allow every one to worship as he 
pleases, so long as he is law abiding. 

Dec. 21, 1911. 



CHAPTER 56. 



CHARLES E. PACKARD. 

While Mr. C. E. Packard was not what I call an 
early settler pioneer, he has been in Cameron and vicinity 
about fifty years, and I have been intimately acquainted 
with him since he first came. I think he is now the only 
living man who was at my infair dinner, excepting my 
own family, and I 've been (I believe) in closer touch 
v/ith him than any other man for fifty years, as he has 
been engaged in business in Cameron nearly all those 
long years, and has never robbed enough in his dealings 
with men to retire with a big fortune. He may have 
made mistakes (as we all do), but, usually, he, as well 
as others, suffered by his and their own mistakes. 

Mr. Packard has been a pillar of strength in the 
Christian Church, by example of his Christian walk and 
liberal gifts, and his name should go down to posterity, 
as it will, as one of the early Christians of Cameron. 

Midway Place, Dec, 1911. 

144 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



CHAPTER 57. 



OUR GERMAN NEIGHBORS. 

John Lohman, who died in Cameron a few years 
since, was undoubtedly the first, by a few months, to 
settle in the German neighborhood four miles southwest 
of Cameron. He came in the winter, and old Mr. Sells, 
father of Frederic, Henry and Adolph Sells, and Karl 
Kresse's father-in-law. I think this colony settled here 
about the year 1852, and no better class of citizens, for- 
eign or native born, ever came to the neighborhood from 
any state or country than they and their descendants. I 
omitted to mention Mr. Beechner came at the same time. 
He has many grandchildren to represent his name. I 
think some of these good people were about the best in- 
formed Germans I ever met. 

Mr. Fred Selle came to Lexington, Kentucky, several 
years prior to the time the settlement came here, and 
had studied English in the Fatherland and spoke it quite 
fluently when I first saw him, hence, he was an inter- 
preter (Dolmetzer), for the colony in business trans- 
actions. However, the little kids soon were better in- 
terpreters than any of the older people. 

It is not often one meets a better informed man than 
was Henry Selle, father of Gustave and Albert Selle. He 
was a master mechanic (stone cutter), as were his 
brothers, Adolphus and Julius. Fred and Julius both 
were volunteers, as was Gustave, their nephew, in the 
Union Army in the great war. Fred and Gustave got 
back; Julius' life was laid on his adopted country's altar, 
as was two of Mr. Stein's sons, and one of Mr. Lohman's. 
Mr. Stein came with the first colonists, and no more 
worthy people can be found in this community than are 
the descendants of William Stein, senior. We'd have 
little use for court houses more than to preserve records 
and other local business, if all people were like our good 
German neighbors. 

They built the first church building (a log structure) 



SEVLNI Y-FIVL YLARS ON TIIL BOKDtK 

ill Slioiil 'l'owiirilii|). Tliry now li.ivr ;i cfipQcioui frame 
chtiicli .'iiiil |wii u(>n;i]',p l>iiil(liii|',, witcir the dcmentn of 
llic lnii|.Miit^',c oi the I<\i1liri I.mkI nic 1:iu^',ht in SiUMi.iy 
Scliool ;iii(| pi'r.'icliin}.;, in hotli IOti}',liMii .ind (jriin.iM, mm 
iiioHt. ol tlir yoiiii^'.ci oucm jiic, to nil inlnitM, p.itriotic 
ArnerirnnM, .md uiKlciMtand ICnjdiHli a f^rcat deal better 
than thf f "iriin.in, mo drar to their ancrMloi ;i. 

I have noticed that iainni !i(-ll hi)',hri, tjiiality con- 
Hidere<l, in a Gcnnan < oiMiiiiiiniy, ili.iii wli<-ir no Gcr- 
inann are cilizenH. They ;ill li.ivr ii p.iliiotic love for the 
l*'alhei land, and are (nrtt clasH < iti/rnii in any countiy. 

CIIAP'I'lOk SH 



(lOINC. ACKUSS rWM PLAINS IN lOAkl.Y DAYS. 

Sixty yeaiM a^'.o, a youn>.', man on the hordei thou^dit 
hin educiition very incoiriplete il he had not made a trip 
Ol two acroHH the plaiim to h'oi t Laramie, llall, |{iid|'_ri 
or Jioiwe on (he "C)iej',on Trail", or to llents, h'orl Santa 
Kc, TonH, or Alhucpienpir, on ihr K'io Cirandc, over "The 
Old Santa I'V Trail". l'"or many yrais thne w/eie two 
coinpanirM en^sij'.ed laij;rly in rieijditin|> acrosH that 
(then) deNolate waMte inhabited by Mava^'.e, blood thiinty 
Indianti, ravenoim wolves and tenti (jf thousandH of the 
ji;reat American UiMon, or bullaloeii. One of theMC frei|'.ht- 
iiif. «oiuein?] waM ownrd by the (hen well known Hen 
Holiday, who caiiied height and expirr;;i on the more 
Southern roiitCH. The other company was the f'.ieat 
freii'.htin}', lirni of MajoiH, l^'ll:lsell <S- Wa<l<lrll, wliirh is 
tfie one about whii h I linew tlir most. 

I have met Mi. MajoiM several ycaiM a^jo in Denver, 
lie was then past HO years old, but was a very interesting 
man with whom to talk. Me was almost a ('om))en(liiim 
of tbr history of the MoKlei, and a few years after pub 
lished his book, '"/() Years on the West h'ronticr", aiul a 
very interesting', and instinctive work. IIIm chuj)tcr on 
"The Moiiiions and lbi)diam Yoiin^;", is, I think, thr bent 



SEVLN lY-FIVi: YEARS ON TIIL IJOKDKK 

and leant hi.iMcd T'vr Mrni. ITc lived nl.or near, [ndrprnd 
ence when llic Monnnnii weie cxprllrri Imimi tlirir. lie 
alio rcNidcd in Siilt Luke 10 or 12 yeaiH, .ind wan inti- 
mately Jic(|iiaiiiled with nrij,',ham Youn^'.. lie Hayrt in 
hin hook that he did iiiilliotiH of doIhuM wotth of huHi 
ncuH with hri|di.uii Yr)iiii|', iiml hiii Saintn, an«l never 
found a iairer man witli whom to do himincns. 

ft no hnppenn, I hoiif^ht a tract of land a lew mileN 
*outh of Wrfttport, which wan owned l>y Mr. MajorM in 
hiri |)almy dayti oi ii rifditirif,, on thi!i (lact, which 1 
named "I.onesomehuiHt Park". It had hcen an old 
time hluckHmith shop. I've found many *)f the old hrickn 
and cindeiM <jf tlie old loij'.e, where hin hi|'. jjrairic 
nchoonerH were repaiicd in winter, hy a man named Dod 
Hon. I prcHumc DodMon on the Hi^ liluc ut the end of 
the WcHtport and Uodnon electric line, whh named after 
thia early day hl.'K kMmith Dodson 

My near nei|',hl>oi, Mr. Alvin DouglaHH, wn« a 
Rchoolmate of Mr. Majorii' tliildrcn, and has pointed out 
to me the |)lace where Mr. MajorH lived, which in juMt a 
few hundred yards northeawt of the Htati(Mi at the Mouth 
end of the Mai Ihoi ou|di electric line, and hut a little 
dintanoe from I)od«on. Let me tell ahout how Mr. 
DouKlaHH hid (an he told me) when a boy, In a bi^, hol- 
low elm tree, which HtandH on the point of land at the 
junction of Dykes' Hiamh ;md Indian Creek, a picture 
of which I have at prewent in a landMcajJC |)hoto cnjMav- 
ing of Mccncry <»n "Loncfiomehiunt Park Place", taken 
nine yearn a^'.o. 

The battle <jf WeMpoi t wan ra}.',in>'_, and armed com- 
panien and detached h(|uadH were li)/htin|.; and chattin^^ 
each other all over the prairie and woodM, and croMHin({;N 
of the creeks. There are now Hijam of the ohi time crown- 
inj^ juHt below the mouth of Dykes' Hranch near where 
the bij'., Imllow tree HtandH at thin time (if it has rrot 
been cut down Mince I left there four yearH Mince.) 

Mr. Douj'.lasH said (irMt one colored uniform would be 
rimriiii|' .iiid llir ollirr color after them, then the othn 
w^juld be runnin]4, bein^; chaHed and fired at as they ran 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

for some two or three days. Mr, Douglass is a truthful 
man, and what he tells can be set down as fact, and a 
better neighbor than he and his son, George, I never 
lived by. In fact, all those old settlers out in that neigh- 
borhood, including the Boones, descendants of Nathan 
Boone, the son of old Daniel Boone, the pioneer of Ken- 
tucky, are as good people as any one need want to live 
by, notwithstanding some of the older ones were Con- 
federates, or sympathizers. I still have a warm feeling 
for them and visit them frequently when in Kansas City. 
I lived, or might say sojourned, there four years, either I, 
or my wife, being at home part of the time, as we always 
called our old Midway Place, to which we hustled back in 
a hurry after selling "Lonesomehurst Park." 

WESTPORT. The very name suggests times gone 
by. The old Harris House, at one time probably the 
largest building west of St. Louis, except the public 
buildings; the caravansary which probably has housed, 
and been headquarters for more great men, who have 
figured in the past history of the great overland traffic 
and war measures, than any other building now intact 
and in every day use. It is a staunch, solid looking, old, 
three story structure yet, and is probably 60 years old. 
Another is the old Wornall building, some two or three 
miles out south on the Wornall Rock Road. The city 
limits, however, are now four miles south of Westport, 
with enough fine buildings south of Brush Creek (the 
famous "dead line" of Order No. 11) to make a good, big 
city. Let me predict here and now, that Kansas City 
will, within 100 years from now, be the biggest city 
nearest the geographical center, as well as center of 
population of the biggest Nation in the world, and all 
will either speak, or think, in English. 

I'll give a few stories I heard told by those who 
crossed the plains many years ago. My Uncle "Bill" 
Williams one night was out on guard, when he heard 
something whiz by him and stick in a little hillock. On 
examining it, it proved to be a feathered arrow. He in- 
stantly laid down flat, when, whiz, whiz, the arrows 

148 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

came past him, so he drew down and fired in the direc- 
tion from which they came, when up jumped three or 
four big Indians and scampered off, the shot arousing all 
the camp. 

A long time ago, I heard a party tell of some 
freighters being in camp up the Arkansas Valley, -who 
were eating their breakfast before starting on their day's 
travel, when, whiz, a lasso went around the body of one 
of the party, who happened to have a sharpe knife in 
his hand at the time. The Indian, who had thrown the 
lasso, whirled his pony to drag away his victim, who in- 
stantly seized the lasso with his other hand, and as it 
tightened, cut it in two with the loop still around his 
body, thereby saving himself from a terrible death. 

Back as far as I can remember, before we moved 
from Cass to Clinton County, I heard a story told, and 
I have seen the same story in print a great many years 
ago, so long that I've almost forgotten the particulars. 
However, it went something like this, — a very wealthy 
Spaniard of Santa Fe, or Chihuahua, loaded a six mule 
team with Mexican silver dollars and started for West- 
port, or Independence, expecting to take a steamboat for 
St. Louis to lay in a large stock of such goods as his 
trade required. He had along several natives as a guard 
to protect from Indians and robbers. 

As the story went, they got along all right until 
within 50 to 100 miles of Westport, when they were at- 
tacked by a band of renegade white cut throats from 
the Border, who, it was supposed, had some friends in 
the escort who had notified them. At any rate, the old 
Spaniard was murdered and his silver and teams taken 
by the freebooters. I can't remember whether these 
murderers were ever arrested and punished, or even how 
the story came to civilization ; I was so young and it has 
been so long since, but this story was current for many 
years on the Border. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



CHAPTER 59. 



WHAT AWFUL LIARS SOME PEOPLE ARE. 

If you want to find out how men can lie and mis- 
represent, just try horse trading, or swapping horses in 
the back alleys of the village. I got it into my head, 
work with no trading was a very prosy way to make a 
start in the world, which, to some extent, is true. So I 
had to try horse swapping as a starter on the road to 
wealth. I'd been brought up to tell the truth, and, of 
course, thought I had to tell the whole truth about my 
"hoss", and could not realize the fact that the profes- 
sional horse swapper usually would tell you everything 
but the truth about his horse. 

Then, again, his horse always looked a great deal 
bigger before I got him than after, and usually would 
not pull a setting hen off her nest, but would pull more 
backwards than forward, and, somehow, his teeth would 
look different after I had him a few days. I found ex- 
perience taught a dear school, but fools would learn in 
no other. I learned, but came to the bridle several times. 

My old friend, Ash McCartney, once told me a cer- 
tain friend of ours would cheat a man out of his horse, 
and at the same time the man would think he was one of 
the finest men, he'd do it so smoothly. Many years ago, 
I wanted to buy a good, honest farm horse for all pur- 
poses, so this man, hearing of my wants, came to me 
telling me he had just the horse I needed, guaranteeing 
him to be all right in every way. I looked him over. 
He was a big, fine looker and seemed to be about what I 
wanted, but knowing the antecedents of his owner, I 
said to him, "I am not a very good judge of a horse, and 
you offer to guarantee him. I am willing to pay every 
dollar a good horse is worth, but the horse must be worth 
every dollar I pay for him. I'll take the horse, try 
him two weeks, and if he proves to be what you say he 
is, I'll pay you your price for the horse." I didn't get 
him. He knew I'd find what was the matter with him 
in two weeks' trial. 

ISO 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

As smart as I thought I was, I finally got a balky 
horse unloaded on me. A merchant in town had a nice 
looking horse, and knowing I wanted one, he got a pretty 
shrewd fellow to tackle me in the horse deal, so we went 
into the store and while I talked to the owner, who said 
the horse was sound, six years old, good saddler and 
would work anywhere, only his color was not very fash- 
ionable, "a yellow dun," and he was a little moon-eyed, 
everything else was "honest Injun," his man went out 
somewhere. In the meantime, I wondered what was 
keeping his man so long, and mentioned "I have an idea 
L. is warming him up." 

Finally, here he came down the street with two 
horses hitched to a spring wagon, driving up and down 
the street furiously, giving the yellow horse no time to 
study about it, and proclaiming loudly that H. was a 
fool for offering the horse for that price. He put a saddle 
on him, slashing him up and down the street at a fearful 
rate, the owner also declaring he was one of the best all 
round horses in town (he was a good saddler), and I 
finally bought the horse, and, like a fool, didn't use the 
precaution to try him before paying for him. 

I took him home and the next morning hitched him 
up to a spring wagon, and he would not pull enough to 
have turned an old setting hen over in her nest, so we 
tried the same medicine on him that the smooth L. did, 
took him on the rxiad and ran him a mile or so, then 
hooked him to the spring wagon, and he'd trot along kind 
of sidewise (as all balky horses do), but as a worker was 
not worth 30 cents. I found him a good saddle horse, 
but he was so provokingly mean, I was glad to get, and 
take, an offer of $65.00 for him a year later. I got $35.00 
worth of experience in this deal. I could have, by law, 
recovered my money on the plea of obtaining it on false 
pretenses, but my rule in life had been not to squeal if 
I've been fool enough to let sharpers "pull the wool over 

my eyes". 

There is another way of learning some things, just 
go to a big city with a few thousand dollars in cash, 



151 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

pick up the leading real estate paper, look over the ad- 
vertisements where big snaps appear in big, open face 
type, especially some fellow's new high and sightly ad- 
dition, and something like this is trumpeted in your ears : 

"Just buy our lots and see them grow. $10.00 down 
and 'balance like rent'. We'll save you so much money 
if you buy 'our goods'. You'll get rich before you know 
it." 

I know a man, who listened to that kind of a siren 
song on a vacant lot or two in a growing city, who has 
been watching those lots grow for several years, and I 
believe this party would be willing to let somebody else 
watch the City, County, Boulevard, Street Paving, 
Special Benefit District and Park taxes grow, as they al- 
ways do, whether the front feet grow or not. The things 
which are really good dividend payers are, as a rule, not 
hawked around much. 

"I stood beneath a hollow tree, it blew the blast that 
hollow blew, 

I thought upon this hollow world and all its hollow 
crew." 



CHAPTER 60. 



THE POTTER FAMILIES. 

Eldridge Potter, Isaac S. Baldwin, Nicholas Proctor, 
B. S. McCord and David O'Neal, John and Joseph Mus- 
ser and John Bozarth, and George Rhodes, were un- 
doubtedly the first colonists on Shoal Creek. However, 
it is to the elder Potter brothers that I propose to devote 
this chapter. But I've known more generations of the 
old great, great, grandfather Rhodes than any one man 
whom I can remember in my whole life, except our own 
family, six generations. They certainly have kept the 
command given in the beginning, — "Be fruitful and mul- 
tiply." 

Eldridge Potter, the pioneer patriarch of the Meth- 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

odist Israel of Clinton County, was a plain, old fashioned 
Tcnnesseean, whose sturdy honesty and Christian faith, 
no one was ever called to vouch for; the same can be 
said of his two brothers, Nathaniel (Uncle Nat), and 
Bentley, who came to the neighborhood later on. Eld- 
ridge Potter's house looked old in 1842. It was then, as 
well as before and ever after until his death (nearly 
forty years ago), the headquarters for the early Metho- 
dist Circuit riders, as those good men were called in those 
days, who gave their best days proclaiming the glad 
tidings of the lowly Babe of Bethlehem. They went 
without purse or script, with no assured salary in sight. 

How many times have I seen Uncle Eldridge's face 
at his camp meetings, smiling and beaming with religious 
fervor, when the preacher w^ould ask the congregation 
(they didn't have trained choirs then to hollo classical 
music so no one in the audience could understand a word 
that was sung, as nowadays in some churches) to sing, 
"Hear the royal proclamation", or, "Have you heard of 
that sun-bright clime"; "I hear the voice of singing 
among the waving trees; the echoes still are ringing on 
every playful breeze." 

What I've said of Uncle Eldridge was just as true 
of his two brothers, Nathaniel and Bentley Potter, and 
their offspring to the fourth generation have followed in 
the good work of their forefathers, and their name is 
legion. Not one of them to my knowledge, has dis- 
graced their pious ancestors. 

As to the Rhodes' family, I personally, when a little 
boy, knew the older George Rhodes and his son, James, 
who lived on the Kingston and Plattsburg road at Shoal 
Creek Ford; he was a hard working farmer, and coined 
money during the great immigration of the "Forty- 
niners", and later gold seekers. James Rhodes was the 
father of Mary Rhodes, an old schoolmate of the writer 
for a short time. The "Forty-niners" passed our little 
cabin schoolhouse on that Kingston road by the thous- 
ands. Mary Rhodes, I think, was the handsomest girl 
at that time, I've ever seen, and the beauty of goodness 

153 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

stays with Aunt Mary yet, though her beautiful contour 
of personal charms, and rosy cheeks have faded by the 
inexorable inroads of time, but the beauty of soul grows 
like "pure gold" with the burnishing of time. She was 
the third generation; her eldest son, James Potter, the 
fourth, his son, Leonard, the fifth, and his children are 
the sixth generation from the older Rhodes. 

Some years since, it was said if a stranger would 
meet a man in the neighborhood of Turney, and say, 
"Good morning, Mr. Potter", four times out of five he 
would call the right name. However, I don't think this 
is the truth. Eldridge Potter's descendants represent 
many callings, ministers and the eminent doctors of St. 
Joseph, Mo., Thompson and George Potter, being his 
grandsons. 



CHAPTER 61. 



REMINISCENT OF THE PAST. 

Nearly 70 years ago, there came to Clinton County 
two families. The first was rather poor, however, was 
able to purchase over 200 acres of good virgin soil of the 
Government, and erect a (fairly good for that time) log 
house. This family represented (or claimed to, at least), 
the "faith once delivered to the saints", and held to 
through all the persecution of the dark Medieval days of 
the Spanish Inquisition, claiming their faith was the 
same as the Albigenses and Waldenses, who lived in the 
mountain fastnesses of the Alpine region of France, 
Switzerland, Bohemia and other mountain regions, in 
order that they might escape the awful persecution and 
burning at the stake, as befell John Huss of Bohemia, 
100 years before Luther, Melancthon, Calvin and Knox. 

Some of these early Christians went to the moun- 
tains of Wales, and one of their number came to the 
New World settling in Plymouth Colony. He remained 
there a few years and was banished from that commun- 
ism 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

ity for the bold denunciation of infant baptism, claiming 
that immersion in water of repentant believers was the 
only Scriptural baptism, and a purely democratic church 
government was the practice of early Christians. Hence, 
the Puritan colonists banished him. He went to Rhode 
Island and formed a colony of his co-religious believers, 
and today I believe, Rogers Williams of Plymouth 
Colony fame, is recognized as the Father of the Baptist 
denomination in America, all over the Christian world. 

The other good family I have in mind, were follow- 
ers of Calvin, Knox, Wesley and many other illustrious, 
early Christians of the Reformation, who believed that 
pouring of water on the infants of believing parents by 
ordained ministers, was Scriptural baptism, whether the 
infant had repented and believed or not. I must confess 
this is an interpretation of the Scriptures concerning 
baptism which (perhaps by lack of faith) I can't under- 
stand. However, their daily walk. Christian charity and 
benevolent acts were such, that one not knowing, could 
not tell whether they had been immersed in water, or 
had water poured on their heads for Christian baptism. 
Contention over these old church dogmas (I am glad to 
Bay) seems to be relegated to the past, and a true Chris- 
tian spirit prevails in all modern denominations. 

The two families referred to were only specimens 
of many other families in the community before the 
great war struggle. There were grown up men and 
women in each of the families. The representatives of 
Calvin and Knox were evidently of the Cavalier aristo- 
cratic tendencies of the middle and eastern southland 
states. Their warm hearted generosity in entertaining 
their invited guests was a sure indication of their 
nativity. 

These families were good friends and many happy 
evenings were spent in social intercourse until the dark 
mantle of war cast a gloom over all social gatherings, 
as well as family visiting. When the parting of the 
ways at last came, the one took the side of the Union, 
the other (natives of the hospitable southland) took the 

155 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

side of the *'Lost Cause". On the occasion of his last 
social visit (and he loved to make those visits for he 
thought there was no such good girl in all the world as 
one of these, and has not changed his mind much to this 
day, more than 50 years since), this beautiful girl essayed 
to pin a red, white and red rosette to the lapel of his 
coat. However much he would have liked to have 
pleased this amiable young lady, he almost rudely de- 
clined the proffered decoration. 

They parted then and there, so far as social inter- 
course was concerned, the man dividing his time be- 
tween his private affairs and his military obligations to 
the Flag of the Union he loved so well. He was a mem- 
ber of a Militia Company at Cameron. 

One day some two or more years after the rosette 
episode, he went to Cameron (he despised lying around 
in camp idle, hence, was at home a good part of the 
time), and some of his comrades told him the long 
promised new uniforms had arrived, exhibiting those 
drawn by them. He hastened to the commissary for his 
suit, but found left only "Hobson's choice.". I happened 
to see him immediately after he got into his ill fitting 
soldier toggery ; it would have made a heathen idol laugh 
to see how he didn't enjoy his new clothes. After more 
than fifty years, I'll try to describe their fit. 

The pants seemed to have been made for a lager 
beer guzzler, stomach very capacious and legs awfully 
short. There was quite a belt of exposed leg between 
the top of his sox and the bottom of the breeches, and 
the blouse, or round-about, was hardly big enough for a 
12 year old boy, so there was a good wide expanse of 
open country between the top of his pants and the bot- 
tom of the blouse; he looked miserable, and I learned af- 
terwards, he felt miserable, too. 

About the time he was uniformed, I noticed a lady 
hitching (I think a black horse) to a post just south of 
the H, &. St. Joe depot. This patriot seemed to watch 
that good looking young lady pretty closely, loafing 
around in the vicinity of the horse with a side saddle. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

Finally, the lady came along with some bundles which 
looked like dry goods. Our uniformed friend started in 
the direction of the lady, who was going toward her 
horse. I learned afterwards what was said between them 
(the lady and heroic soldier) ; he whispered it to me one 
evening when stilly night was closing o'er us. 

He asked permission to help her to mount. Now this 
hero had been reading some Medieval History about the 
Plumed Knights who marched with Henry of Navarre 
to Jerusalem to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the 
hand of the infidels, and, of course, concluded that 
knight errantry was the proper thing on this occasion. 
But I've gotten clear off my narrative of an incident 
which really occurred. The proffered aid she smilingly 
accepted. I guess she smiled at the ludicrous appearance 
of her chivalrous knight. When she was mounted and 
foot in stirrup, she graciously thanked him, saying she 
did not know that any one in the camp cared anything 
for her, and telling him she hardly deserved such kind- 
ness, considering the past. When it came to the soldier's 
time to talk, he had such a lumpy, choking sensation in 
his throat, he could not for the life of him, at that time, 
more than mutter something about 'twas a soldier's duty 
to protect a fair lady, intimating that the courtesy of 
thanks was hardly necessary. And yet, if he had owned 
worlds, I believe at that time he would have lain them 
at her feet. 

I learned afterwards that he waited and hoped till 
"Hope long deferred maketh the heart sick", and finally 
worshiped at another shrine. I will not mention the 
names of hero or heroine of this little "Allegory", as they 
are both yet living, the one nearing 78 and the other 75 
years. 

If the good lady should chance to read this little 
romance, it will not be necessary for any one to tell her 
the name of that gallant knight, the hero of this story. 

Midway Place, Dec. 11, 1911. 

157 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



CHAPTER 62. 



DAVE O'DONNELL. 

When I first knew David O'Donnell, he Uved just 
south of Cameron Junction, on land recently owned by 
Mr. Jas. Bohart, He came to this state and neighbor- 
hood about the year 1842, from Tuscarawas Co., Ohio, 
Mr. O'Donnell was one of those hardy pioneers, who 
shrank not from any obstacles that hard work, economy 
and perseverance could overcome. He hewed out of the 
wilderness three large farms while I knew him. He went 
to California in 1850, staying there some two or three 
years, returning, as nearly all the early gold seekers did 
at that time, via Panama and New York and Chicago. 
The entire cost of returning was about $400.00 in gold, at 
that time, and took about two month's time to accom- 
plish. 

Upon returning, he went to work on his farm, now 
owned by Mr. Thos. Jones, on the Cameron and Mirabile 
road. At the same time, he hewed out timber for a heavy 
frame water power saw mill, which was located one- 
fourth mile west of the County line bridge on Shoal 
Creek. This mill was at that time, badly needed, but ow- 
ing to the millwright's wrong calculation, and setting the 
water wheels too low, with insufficient width of race, the 
water soon after being turned on, backed up and drowned 
the power of the small fall, hence did very little work. 
I yet have some lumber on my horse barn which was 
sawed in this mill. It had only a temporary brush dam 
which soon washed away, and the mill was abandoned. 
Soon after, Mr. John T. Jones bought the farm on which 
it was situated. This mill was the last attempt to saw, 
or grind by water power in the county. 

After selling, Mr. O'Donnell moved on a tract of 
320 acres five miles southeast of Cameron, and made of it 
a good, productive farm, and he lived there until his 
death which occurred about 18 or 19 years ago, at the 
good old age of over 80 years. 

158 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

I doubt if ever another man, up to his death, lived 
in Clinton County, who had done as much hard labor as 
had David O'Donnell. However, he lived at the time of 
his death, and for many years before, in Caldwell County, 
just about one-fourth of a mile from the county line. 

He had gotten in debt some on another big tract of 
land, and the war coming on, this debt was foreclosed 
and left him almost penniless with a large family. Two 
of his grown sons and a daughter dying about this time, 
helped to drag him down financially, and had he not had 
a courage that knew no such word as "Fail", he would 
probably have remained a tenant the balance of his life. 
I know of but two of his children now living (since the 
death of Geo. W. P. O'Donnell, his son), Mrs. Susan 
Henderson, of Kearney, and Mrs. David Harper of Cam- 
eron, Mo. 

In this connection, I will say I was well acquainted 
with all his children save one girl, by his first wife, who 
never lived in this vicinity. John O'Donnell, his oldest 
son (by his first wife) and I were chums in boyhood 
days. He went with his father to California and died a 
short time after arriving there. I, however, was better ac- 
quainted v/ith George W. P. O'Donnell than any of the 
rest, having been intimately acquainted since his child- 
hood, more than 60 years. He, like nearly all my boy- 
hood and early manhood friends, has gone to "That 
bourne from which no traveler returns." 

When the cold clods were falling on his coffin, I 
could indeed understand the lines written many years 
since, "Earth to earth and dust to dust". He was the 
last of my boyhood male friends. There are now only 
three ladies left who were in this neighborhood when I 
first came in 1842. 

For a man with a very limited education, George 
O'Donnell was a very good business man, was a director 
for many years in "The Farmer's Bank" of Cameron, 
and owned about 700 acres of improved farms. He was 
the father of Mrs. Roland Williams (one of my sons) 
besides three other living sons and one girl. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

George O'Donnell made most of his property by in- 
dustry, frugality and close attention to his own business, 
and died in the hope of a blessed immortality. He was 
born about the year 1843, three miles east of Cameron, 
on a farm he since bought and lived on so many years, 
but had a residence in Cameron, where he died. His 
wife's maiden name was Julia A., daughter of Samuel 
Wilhoit, an early settler, eight miles south of Cameron. 
She is left to mourn the loss -of a faithful husband and 
good citizen. The name of O'Donnell will live a good 
while after we are gone. 

Midway Place, Nov. 12th, 1911. 



CHAPTER 63. 



A TRIP ON THE STEAMBOAT, 
"MORNING STAR." 

Having a small interest in the land our grandfather 
Luke Williams left at his death, which occurred about 
the year 1832 or 33, five miles west of Boonville, Mo., 
I boarded the splendid little steamer, "Morning Star", at 
Weston, Mo., the first steamboat on which I had ever 
traveled, in June, 1856, bound for Boonville, and a gay 
crowd it was on that Ohio River boat which was making 
an excursion up the Missouri River to St. Joseph. They 
had along a splendid string orchestra, as well as a full 
brass band, which discoursed fine music on nearing the 
towns where they proposed landing. They had on board 
the elite of the cities of Cincinnati, Louisville and St. 
Louis, and a menu equal to that of the Baltimore Hotel 
of Kansas City, today. With the almost continuous 
round of dancing, waltzing and eating, I can tell you I 
felt like the traditional "poor boy at a frolic", and made 
myself as scarce as possible. 

This fine boat went right along with very little 
trouble with sand bars; however, she stuck a time or 
two in the vicinity of Dewitt, Carroll County, but lifting 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

her bow with capstan and block, backed off and passed 
on down the muddy current. On this trip I saw Kansas 
City for the first time. It looked from the boat to be 
built (on the good, wide wharf on which was piled lots 
of merchandise, part of which was covered with big tar- 
paulins) up a deep gulch with a street or roadway, cut 
out on one side of the gulch. However, I couldn't see 
up the gulch any distance; it was too crooked. I think 
since I have become familiar with the city, that gulch 
was Main, or Delaware street. I think the boat landed 
near where the big power house is now. 

After remaining a while, taking some freight and 
passengers, her whistle sounded, cable and plank were 
drawn on deck, and she swung her pretty prow into the 
current and away she glided, amid the strains of her 
band. Without anything worth further mentioning, I 
arrived at the place of my nativity 22 years before. I 
visited the double log cabin, belonging to Captain Ham- 
mond, in which I was born. My parents were staying 
with his wife while he was gone to Santa Fe on a trading 
expedition. This, my birth, occurred in May 1834. 

I was in my grandfather Williams' old cabin, and 
had a good drink of fine water at his old well. I visited 
his, and also my mother's father's graves under a wal- 
nut tree, not far from the lonely cabin, off quite a dis- 
tance from the road, with rough stones from the creek 
for markers, and I wonder today if those graves are 
plowed over. Let that be as it may, they will be found 
when the last trumpet shall sound. 

It was on my return trip that I got the first inkling 
of what was coming five years later. When I had ac- 
complished what I had gone for, I boarded a steamer, 
"The Star of the West", a regular freight and passenger 
boat, bound up river. I met with one incident which I 
will always remember, which occurred at Lexington. 
The boat had about 100 men from the New England 
states aboard, bound for Kansas. They all had Sharp's 
rifles, the best long range guns of that period. When 
the boat approached the town, there was on the wharf, 

161 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

one or two pieces of cannon loaded and shotted with 
solid shot, and manned by ample force to sink the boat 
in ten minutes, if she disobeyed their order to round to 
and tie up, which order she obeyed instanter. An armed 
company of Missourians came on that boat and took the 
last gun and pistol they could find, offered no remunera- 
tion to their owners, telling those Massachusetts emi- 
grants they should be thankful to get off that easily. They 
then allowed the boat to proceed. 

It was about two o'clock in the night, when the boat 
was rounded to and I was asleep at the time and did 
not see any of the transaction above described, but a 
madder set of men I've never seen. They swore ven- 
geance on border ruffians, and history recounts the many 
bloody scenes this, and other outrages on both sides, fol- 
lowed up to, and through, the troublous times prior, to, 
and through the four terrible years of war on the Border. 



CHAPTER 64. 



HIRAM A. McCartney. 

Hiram A. McCartney was born in Harrisburg, Va,, 
A, D., 1821, died on his farm A. D., 1882, his two sisters, 
the elder M. Jane, and Harriet, keeping house for him 
till they married, and his older sister, Mrs. Jas. Steele 
continuing to do so until his death. 

It is difficult in writing this short biographical 
sketch of my old time friend, who was a friend in need 
(a true friend), to find language to adequately express 
my gratitude for the many favors and acts of kindness 
and words of encouragement while I was a poor, father- 
less boy. 

Many is the time I've been at public vendues when 
he'd come to me and say, "Jimmy, if you need, or want 
any of this property, buy it and I'll go on a note with 
you." Then is it any wonder that the silent tear invol- 
untarily falls to the memory of Hiram A. McCartney, 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

my friend from early boyhood to his death. Mr. Mc- 
Cartney was not only my friend, but was the friend of 
the widow and orphan, as well as the rich and great. 
His whole life was devoted to doing good to others. 
When I'd ask him why he never married, he'd always 
say, "My sisters and orphaned nephews and nieces are a 
sacred charge I've taken on myself, and this charge I'll 
keep." I know that Hiram McCartney loved a good and 
amiable young lady, one of my near neighbors, for he 
told me so many times that he loved the ground she 
walked on, and there is but little, if any, doubt exists in 
my mind that he could, and would, have married this 
good woman had he not long before resolved to stand by 
his sisters. This is only one of the tragedies of life. 

At the time of his death, Mr. McCartney stood high 
in financial and business circles. A short time before, 
Mr. R. J. House, who was running the first bank estab- 
lished in Cameron, had closed the door of the old Deposit 
Bank, thereby causing considerable excitement and dis- 
trust of individual banking concerns locally. It was then 
that Ex-Governor George Smith and Hiram McCartney 
commenced canvassing for subscriptions for a new joint 
stock corporation, to be called "The Farmers' Bank of 
Cameron." With two such men of undoubted integrity 
and honesty at the helm, it was but a short time until the 
required stock was taken, and Hiram McCartney was 
unanimously elected first president of this Farmers' 
Bank of Cameron. When Gov. Smith and Mr. McCart- 
ney visited me for subscription to the stock, telling me 
it should be run on honest, business principles, it took no 
arguments to induce me to take stock in this new and 
untried enterprise, and it proved a great success from 
the beginning. But neither of these life long friends of 
mine lived long enough to enjoy the fruition of the suc- 
cess they so well merited. I finally bought Mr. Cartney's 
stock of his administrator, and was honored with the 
election of director and vice-president of the institution 
for nearly twenty years in succession. 

Hiram McCartney, in his younger days, was a great 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

lover of little dancing cotillion parties, and was popular 
with all the young ladies; was an enthusiast for singing 
societies, though I never heard him try to sing, or even 
whistle, a note in music. He was especially fond of de- 
bating, and many is the time I have enjoyed his logic; 
however, his rhetoric, like my own, was not equal to that 
of Demosthenes or Cicero. One of his efforts I'll never 
forget. The subject of debate that night, was, — "Re- 
solved, That a smoky chimney is a greater torment than 
a scolding wife." McCartney took the negative side, and 
after a good, long funny speech, brought the house down 
with his denouncement, as follows: "Why, Mr. Chair- 
man, there is no more comparison between a smoky 
chimney and a scolding wife, than there is between a 
little nigger and a dark, foggy night." He won the de- 
cision. 

The last public speech, or talk, I ever heard him 
make, and I think this was the last he made, was at a 
Sunday School picnic south of Cameron, near the Mc- 
Cartney Spring (named after him, its owner, later on). 
When called on to make a talk to the boys and girls of 
the Sunday School, he arose, greeted the school and aud- 
ience in his usual pleasant, manner, but leaving out his 
usual cold logic, warming with his subject into a fervor 
and eloquence that astonished his old time friends who 
were present, telling the young people of the royal path 
of life, and of the reward at the end of a well spent life. 

It is now about thirty years since I heard this little 
talk and from my present view point, it looks as though 
he had a presentment this would be his last public 
chance to do good to others, which proved to be only too 
true. It was the last time I ever saw him, and a pleas- 
ant memory it surely is. 



Midway Place, Nov. 7th, 1911. 



164 




HIRAM A. McCartney 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



CHAPTER 65. 



A WAR TIME DANCE AT MIKE MOORE'S, FIVE 

MILES NORTH OF CAMERON ON THE 

OLD WHITTAKER MILL AND 

MAYSVILLE ROAD. 

I owned a good team and made a great big, two- 
seated sleigh to fit just such occasions, so a few of us 
soldier boys arranged to have a good sleigh ride and little 
dance at the jovial, good, old Uncle Mike's, as we called 
him. We sent Mr. Moore and his wife word what they 
might expect on a certain night a day or two later. We 
didn't dare put it off many days as the treacherous south 
wind might spoil our sleigh ride. I remember now of 
only two sleighs going from Cameron. I was fixed to 
carry two couple. I think now that Jack Thomas was 
the owner of the other sleigh, and had along his best girl, 
Miss Lizzie Fisher, Pardon me here for unveiling the 
life tragedy of poor Jack Thomas, after which I'll pro- 
ceed with the sleigh ride and dance at "Uncle Mike's". 

Jack, as all the young people in Cameron and vicin- 
ity knew, was desperately in love with Lizzie, and 
whether she reciprocated his love I never knew; on sev- 
eral occasions I had hinted it to her. I was then not 
quite so bashful and choky when I wanted to talk to a 
pretty, vivacious girl as I have described myself on 
several other occasions; war time had taken all that out 
of me. To show my esteem for Jack, and incidentally for 
Lizzie, he and she and Mr. and Mrs. Culver were guests 
at my infair dinner. Jack was true to his love, and 
they, I think, kept company for awhile after the war, 
when finally she married a fine young man and moved 
away, I think, to St. Joseph, and both are dead, I be- 
lieve. Since writing the above I heard she is yet living. 

Jack still ran his livery business but had a partner. 
The town springing up like a mushroom after the war 
ended, they decided to buy some more buggies, and Jack 
told his partner he would go to Quincy and buy some 

165 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

new stock. So they collected and got together what 
ready money they could scrape up, and Jack started to 
Quincy, and was not heard of for more than twenty 
years. He left enough, I heard, to make his partner 
whole. Our neighbor, Mr. James Jones, came across 
him one day at Los Angeles in a livery stable, where 
he was, as I understand the story that came back, work- 
ing as a hired hand. Jack first denied his identity, but 
finally admitted he was the Jack Thomas of Cameron. 
I think Mr. Thomas P. Jones, whose wife was a cousin 
of Jack's, saw and talked with him when he was on a 
visit a good many years ago with his brother James, 
and brother-in-law, A. K. Crawford, a large real estate 
dealer in the boom days of Los Angeles. While in 
California over twenty years ago, I visited Mr. Craw- 
ford and Mr. Jones, and Jack was there then, but none 
of us knew it. 

Now for the sleigh ride, and "on with the dance." 
Jack and his girl rode in one of his fine cutters, which 
made my outfit "look like 30 cents." I think the girl 
I had under my wing that evening was Miss Anne 
Heinbaugh, who afterward married a Mr. James Miller, 
son of the old time Dr. Miller, who lived many years 
not far from the little creek north of old Uncle Billy 
Read's, four miles north of Cameron. 

My invited guests on that sleigh ride, I think, but 
I am not certain, it is so long since, were Lieutenant 
(now Judge) Henry of Cameron, and his girl. Lieuten- 
ants in war time were mighty popular with the girls, 
as were all of us officers. I never have found out for 
certain, but think I was a corporal. Granting this to 
be true, together with my personal beauty (?) and 
Chesterfieldian polish in drawing and ball rooms, my 
popularity with the girls was not to be wondered at. 
I think the Lieutenant had along on that sleigh ride 
little Sis Stout, a daughter of old Grandmother Adams, 
about the first lady resident of Cameron. Miss Stout 
afterward married Mr. John Nelson, who was head 

166 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



clerk in many of the early dry goods stores of Cameron. 
Nearly everybody in Cameron remembers John Nelson. 
On our party's arrival, we found a good many local 
couples were already there. Uncle Mike's good wife 
"cleared the deck for action," having only a good sized 
front room, wide porch and sleeping loft above it, with 
lean-to shed room for kitchen. There were always two 
or three fiddlers, backwoods fiddlers, at these "Terpsi- 
chorean" performances, who could rasp out at a fearful 
velocity as to time, if not of rythmic melody. While 
two or three of these musicians were tuning to middle 
"C", the boys were busy getting partners. Notwith- 
standing all my personal beauty and polished suavity in 
the drawing room, I hardly knew when the fiddler 
yelled, "Salute your partners" and "balance all," whether 
he meant to kiss the girl you had led out to dance with, 
or some other uncertain part of the figure of the cotil- 
lion, hence, I always went a little slow to see where 
I was at, and usually found I was away behind, my 
disgusted partner having to drag me through the whole 
figure. However, in the first place, I always took the 
precaution to select some rather antiquated spinster, 
who had a good deal of experience in days gone by, but 
the trouble with these aged maidens was, a great many 
of them had, did I say "red," no, auburn, hair, which 
I avoided when possible. However, in many cases 
they put up with, and pulled me through the mazes of 
the dance. The fiddlers shouted "promenade all, balance 
and swing, alamande all," which French call my old 
chum. Dock McCarthy used to call, "Hallamaluke." 
But to her credit, let her hair be red, auburn or raven, 
she got there on time and seemed to enjoy it, too, better 
than I did. 

We'd had several "sets" and the young Grindstone 
boys kept dropping in, each one having along his girl, 
and only one room. Something had to be done or some 
boys and girls, too, would have to leave without the 
pleasure of keeping step to the rhythmic measures of 
melody rasped out by that primitive string band. Lieu- 



167 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

tenant Billy then, as ever after, was equal to the emer- 
gency. He was on his "native heath" having been 
raised within a mile or so of Mr. and Mrs. Moore. He 
whispered something to the good wife, and instantly 
pots, kettles, chairs, stools and all other movable fur- 
niture went into corners and out of doors into the back 
yard, and the orchestra which was located in the door 
went from front room to kitchen, when the Lieutenant, 
being accustomed to command men and us subalterns 
to obey, called out, "All those gentlemen who have been 
dancing come into the kitchen," which was eagerly 
obeyed by a good many, who not knowing what had 
been going on in that shed room kitchen while they 
were engaged in dancing or entertaining their partners 
with soft talk, jumped at the conclusion that the gal- 
lant officer was going to draw a weapon on them a little 
less dangerous (but not much in the long run), than 
the deadly revolver. But to their chagrin, they found 
that Lieutenant Henry didn't carry a bottle then, any 
more than Judge Henry does now. What the gallant 
Lieutenant was driving at, was fair play to those fresh 
arrivals. Soon we had partners in that lean-to kitchen. 
Our partners, as usual, losing some of that coy shyness, 
were equal to the occasion, and soon all hands and feet, 
too, in both rooms were keeping step to the rhythmical 
strains of "Hog and Sheep Going Through the Pasture" 
or the minor key melody of the "Girl I Left Behind 
Me." 

There were only two of us had any inconvenience 
in that shed room; the Lieutenant and I were the tall 
men, but he had to duck his head considerably more 
than I did when we, in promenading, came to the low 
place in the ceiling. However, we had a good time in 
that old time house, as the young people have now 
in marble and gilded halls, keeping time to the melo- 
dious strains of modern string bands. But, alas, I know 
of no living soul except myself and Judge Henry of 
Cameron, who was at that little dance at Uncle Mike 
Moore's fifty years ago. 

168 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



CHAPTER 66. 



JOHN P. McCartney. 

John p. McCartney was born in Harrisburg, Vir- 
ginia, March 24th, 1819, died January 24th, 1897, mar- 
ried to Miss Angeline Thomas in June, 1861, who died 
in October, 1897. I was well acquainted with this lady. 
Her father. Uncle Billy Thomas, was a good man, and 
was one of the early day judges of Caldwell County. 
Only one of his sons is now living, Thaddeus, who is 
in very feeble health; I have known him for sixty 
years. Died since above was written. 

I first became acquainted with John McCartney 
about the year 1848. He was the oldest of a large fam- 
ily, who came from Ohio, and I think originally from 
Virginia, and was of undoubted cavalier lineage. No 
family in the community in an early day, stood higher 
than did the McCartney, representing, as they did, the 
warm hospitality of the southland, and to some extent, 
its local prejudices, but not the ignorance and super- 
stition of many sections of the territory south of "Ma- 
son and Dixon's" line. Hence, it cannot be wondered 
at that this good family took the side of the South in 
the great war to establish "a Confederacy," whose chief 
corner stone was the perpetuation of African slavery 
and State's Rights. While none of the men took any 
active military part in the great struggle of the rebellion, 
I think they did not deny that their sympathies were 
with the Confederates. The better class of those who 
stood firmly for the Union through evil, as well as good 
report, always respected those who differed from (and 
their name was legion) in the Border State. But there 
was a class of men, who loved the Union for the plun- 
der that could be gotten out of border warfare, as well 
as the great premium olTered for enlistment, and usually 
these fellows, who were so brave on dress parade, were 
the first to "show the white feather" when a little danger 
was in sight. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

But I am digressing. When I first knew John 
McCartney, he was engaged, with his other brothers 
and sisters, in farming and handHng considerable num- 
bers of cattle and other live stock. He also was inter- 
ested in merchandising at Kingston, but sold his inter- 
est in the mercantile business, and devoted his entire 
time to home interests. About this time, a post office 
was entablished at the McCartney farm, called "El- 
monte," and John P. McCartney was postmaster. I 
think this was the last cross roads post office in this 
end of Clinton County, and it was abandoned when 
Cameron came into existence with the opening of the 
Hannibal & St. Joseph Railway, the first railway reach- 
ing Missouri River from the east. The writer sav/ the 
first excursion passenger train pass Cameron, which 
ran from the Mississippi River to the Missouri River; 
I think it was in February, 1858. 

John McCartney was an enthusiastic pomologist, 
and established the first permanent nursery in Clinton 
County, which he operated for many years. Many of 
the old apple and pear trees in the vicinity of Cameron, 
were raised in McCartney's nursery. I have one apple, 
and two pear trees bought of him in the year 1860, yet 
living and bearing. 

For many years, Mr. McCartney was an uncom- 
plaining invalid, but he was cheerful to the last. I vis- 
ited him a short time before his death, and offered all 
the comforts I could, wishing him many days yet on 
earth, but he shook his head, saying his career was 
near its end, which was true. 

John McCartney will be long remembered by those 
who knew him best, as a fine business man, with more 
than ordinary information, and a rugged honesty and 
integrity, and with his declining health and death, the 
public lost a good citizen. Peace be to his ashes. 

Mr. McCartney kept the most accurate and com- 
plete diary and meteorological report from the year 1854 
to 1861, inclusive. After an interval of about ten years, 
he again took it up and continued making daily records 

170 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

until the time of his death, which was in the year 1898. I 
consider these reports very valuable acquisitions to the 
horticultural interests of this section of the country, 

JAMES WILLIAMS. 



CHAPTER 67. 



JOSEPH CHARLESS. 

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, there 
lived in Lexington, Kentucky, a man whose name was 
Joseph Charless, who owned and ran probably the larg- 
est and best equipped printing office and book bindery 
west of the Alleghanies, judging from a book I have 
that was printed and bound at that office in the year 
1806. I have hundreds of books, but this book is a 
long way the best bound volume in my library, and is 
now 106 years old. 

My mother's father, Joseph Beatty, was a citizen 
of Lexington at that time and knew Mr. Charless. The 
tide of immigration rolling westward, Charless and my 
grandfather came west about the same time early in 
the nineteenth century, Charless coming to St. Louis, 
and Beatty to St. Charles County. Beatty was a stone 
and brick mason, as well as contractor and farmer, in 
St. Charles County, where his farm was located near 
the famed Dustin Bottoms. Charless had a boy, Joseph 
Charless, Jr., who was a schoolmate of mother's, her 
father having moved to the city early in the spring to 
take contract work in the then growing old French vil- 
lage. Among many others I have heard her tell of the 
Choteaus, LaRoux, Lucases, Charless, etc. One of the 
Lucases fell by the hand of Thomas A. Benton on Bloody 
Island in the Mississippi in an "affair of honor." 

Among other stories of early days in St. Louis was 
that her father and his brother James being partners in 
the contracting business, were offered 40 acres of land 
that is now in the heart of Saint Louis to build for an 
old French citizen a residence building. James Beatty 

171 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

objected on the ground that they could buy good land 
back five miles for $1.25 per acre. The next season 
another American contractor built the same house for 
20 acres. Dying soon after, the 20 acres made his heirs 
a great fortune. 

Young Charless, when he arrived at manhood, went 
into the drug business, which finally grew into the great 
wholesale drug house of Charless, Blow & Co. I can 
remember well of seeing their ads in the old St. Louis 
Republican, which awhile back got kind of ashamed of 
its name, and I don't wonder at its wanting to change 
its name when I think of some of its editorials in war 
time. 

Early in the year of 1860 (I think it was that 
year), the big drug company had in their employ a 
young man by name of Thornton, whom Mr. Charless 
accused of purloining money and falsifying the books 
to make them balance, resulting finally in Thornton 
being discharged. He went down the river to Memphis 
and wandered around looking for a job, but the news 
of the charge against him by the big drug concern had 
preceded him so that he could get no work. He came 
back to St. Louis, wandered around aimlessly for a 
time, then finally armed himself with a deadly Colt's 
revolver, and knowing just where Charless would pass 
for noon luncheon, waited. Finally Charless came in 
sight. Thornton carefully waited until his quarry was 
in point blank range, and telling Charless he'd ruined 
him, saying, "Take that and die, you lying traducer," 
he fired, killing Charless instantly. With the revolver 
still smoking, he went across the street and gave him- 
self up to the policeman, telling him that he had de- 
liberately killed Joe Charless and was ready to pay the 
penalty. 

The writer was in St. Louis the day Thornton was 
hung for this crime, to which he had pleaded guilty 
awhile previous in open court, telling the court he would 
do it again under the same circumstances, saying he was 
ready to pay the penalty which he knew the court was 

172 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

bound by law to impose on him. His statement was 
made public next morning in the papers, and I give 
the particulars as I remember them. One reason for 
my remembering this so long is his victim, Charless, 
was a schoolmate of my mother, and his father was the 
printer of the old bok mentioned above. 

I am preserving this book and want it handed down 
with the Williams name to posterity, as a memento of 
the tragic ending of Joseph Charless and his murderer. 



CHAPTER 68. 



JOHN R. MINER. 

Jack Miner, as he was familiarly called, came here 
and purchased a claim of the late J. M, Marlin, at the 
head of William's Creek, about the year 1850, and lived 
on this farm until his death about twenty-five years 
since. 

Mr. Miner v/as a good, honest, upright, Christian 
gentleman; was a hard working, frugal farmer, leaving 
a good, well improved farm, and what v/as better, a 
good name, with many friends and no enemies. Was 
the father of three sons, Scott, Joseph and Early, and 
three daughters, Mrs. Meredith Adams, now Mrs. James 
S. Price of Wichita Falls, Texas. Mrs. Price's first 
husband, who died many years ago, was the father of 
Newton L. Adams, now and for many years, a success- 
ful dry goods merchant of Cameron. His brother, John 
Adams, owns a fine farm near Turney, and a sister, 
Miss Betty Adams, married a successful boot and shoe 
dealer named Phillips, all excellent people. Mrs. Price 
is also mother of one son, appropriately named Sterling 
Price, a fine young man, as well as several highly cul- 
tured daughters. Mrs. Millard Fore, another daughter, 
and Mrs. Allen Nave, another daughter of Mr. Miner, 
has three respected children, and lives with her aged 
mother, now nearing her ninety-fifth year, perhaps the 
oldest person in Clinton County. Joseph, her brother, 

173 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

also lives on the old home farm. No better man on Shoal 
Creek than Joe Miner. All these people are worthy de- 
scendants of that good, honest man, John R. Miner. 



CHAPTER 69. 



THE JAMES BOYS' FATHER. 



MY RECOLLECTION OF THE FATHER OF THE 

FAMOUS JAMES BROTHERS, JESSE 

AND FRANK. 

I have seen the Reverend James only once in my 
early boyhood. He and my father, Luke Williams, were 
ministers of (at that time) so called Missionary Bap- 
tist denomination, and both frequently preached to- 
gether with that good man. Elder Franklin Graves, who, 
after father's death, preached his funeral. They all 
preached at various times for the old New Hope Bap- 
tist Church located just across the county line in Clay 
County, near the farm of the Elder Collet Haynes for 
whom the town of Haynesville was named, and in its 
best days was a rival of Plattsburg, the only towns in 
Clinton County at that time, fifty-five years ago. There 
were, however, some cross roads stores, Barnesville, Car- 
penter's, Bainbridge and Woodward; Baldwin's had 
come and gone before this period. 

I remember well the names of several of the com- 
municants of New Hope Church, beside many who at 
that time, lived in the vicinity of Haynesville and Cen- 
terville (now Kearney), including the Thomasons, Har- 
risses (one of whom was killed in a skirmish near 
Haynesville in war time). I think young Harris was on 
the Union side; Collet Haynes, the Caves, Major Creek 
and a good many others, including Jacob Greason and 
Jeff Hubbard. 

All early settlers will remember that Clinton, and 
all Northwest Missouri, and for that matter all the vast 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

territory in the great Northwest to Hudson's Bay, 
abounded in game in vast numbers, and in the fall 
would drift from the great prairie regions to the partly 
timbered settlements of the Northwest counties, includ- 
ing the north part of Clinton, then sparsely settled. Clay 
County being longer settled, the game were not so 
plentiful as in North Clinton. Hence, my father being 
quite expert with the old fashioned flint lock, and later, 
percussion cap lock rifle, in the fall of the year killed 
many of those fat deer and turkeys, which came in herds 
and flocks, and some winters would get nearly all of 
a field (the fields were small then) of corn, which hap- 
pened not to be gathered before the deep snows of those 
days. 

So my father invited Brother James, Brother Harris 
and I think Major Creek, for a hunt, and several others 
of his acquaintances were in the crowd. They brought 
along a negro man servant, who drove a yoke of fine 
big oxen to a big covered ox tongue wagon and a camp- 
ing outfit. Of course, those early Nimrods, like cava- 
liers of old, rode horses, and brought a pack of yellow 
tan, long eared hounds, and big old muzzle loading 
double barrel shotguns. They camped on William's 
Creek in a fine timbered bottom belonging to my father, 
just west of the bridge (now in beautiful .blue grass pas- 
ture), just a little north of where I had the picnic April 
30th, 1892, to celebrate my fifty years' residence at Mid- 
way Place. 

'Twas in October, and I think about the year 1845 
or 1846, and in the early morn the hounds and hunters 
would make the welkin ring. They'd surround a clump 
of timber and brush, and when the game would pass, 
their firing reminded me of several skirmishes I par- 
ticipated in a good many years after. 

There were along two or three boys. I think one 
was Mr. Harris' boy, and the other little fellows I now 
think were the famous James brothers. 

Mr. James, as I remember, was a fine specimen of 
Kentucky gentlemen, with a demeanor indicative of a 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

polished education and aristocratic surroundings for gen- 
erations. I've been told he had some family troubles 
and went to California with the early gold seekers and 
died there. The later history of the James family is too 
well known for me to add anything to it. 

In this connection, I might add a little war time 
experience I had on the road between Cam.eron and 
Liberty. 'Twas on this trip (now nearly fifty years ago), 
I last saw the old brick church building that sheltered 
the New Hope worshippers, as well as the old town 
of Haynesville, long since abandoned for the town of 
Holt about two miles southwest. 

It came about in this way. There was a squad 
of soldiers who were (detached from their command at 
Liberty) in Cameron which needed a team to haul some 
of their baggage they were (either too lazy or too 
drunk, or both) to carry on their horses, being cavalry- 
men. I was in Cameron and they nabbed me — "pressed" 
they called such military achievements in those days. 
No use to rem.onstrate. Union and rebel sympathizers 
were about on an equal footing, so far as transporta- 
tion was concerned at that time. So I went, of course, 
arriving in Liberty late that night. I fed my team 
and ate a few "hard tack" with some black coffee. (I 
don't know whether my young friends will know what 
I mean by "hard tack ;" go in the army or navy and you'll 
find out, though they are better now than then.) 

The next day, after having a fair soldier breakfast, 
my team being somewhat rested, I was making ready 
to go home when some of the soldier boys, whose stuff 
I'd hauled from Cameron, suggested to the Orderly 
Sergeant that they had learned in Cameron that I was 
a firm Union man and was entitled to a United States 
voucher for my services, which was true, and the Ser- 
geant proposed right then to make out one, which I de- 
clined. Of course, I liked pay for my services (which 
were not needed at all on that trip), but this was about 
the time the famous (or infamous) Order No. 11 came 
out on the south side of the Missouri River. Let me 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

refer my young readers to a little book entitled "Order 
No. 11," which tells of the heart rending, bloody trage- 
dies that were enacted in Jackson, Lafayette and Cass 
counties carrying out this terrible order, and while I 
lived a few years in Jackson County, temporarily, there 
were a few of the old stone smoke stacks, silent moni- 
tors of that terrible time, still standing. While I'll 
not vouch for the somewhat romantic stories of this 
book, it, however, gives a very good idea of those times, 
as I have learned from other authentic sources long 
before this book was published. 

Clay County, at that time, was full of detached 
squads of Confederates, bushwhackers, and Union sol- 
ders, and nearly all of them would fire on, and then 
halt a supposed enemy, not caring a great deal whether 
he was a friend or foe, if he had a good horse, or some- 
thing they needed or wanted. I didn't care about carry- 
ing government vouchers, not knowing just whose hands 
I might fall into going home, and it happened about 
seven or eight miles out of Liberty I noticed ahead of 
me a solitary horseman, who seemed to be on guard 
on a high hill in the Fishing River timber. I felt a cold 
chill run down my back, but knew it would not do to 
be anything but a farmer returning home from town, 
so drove steadily on. The horseman took a good look 
at me at about 75 yards distance and rode off down to 
a little branch, and when I got to the top of the hill 
where he was located, I noticed a camp fire and several 
horses and men in sight, but didn't investigate very 
closely who they were, or what their business was; 
neither did I allow much grass to grow under my horse's 
feet for several miles after I got out of their sight and 
hearing. 

The Orderly promised to mail my voucher; I never 
heard of it. Of course a "John Doe" voucher was made 
out for transportation, and probably a division among 
those higher up of the proceeds. Good people, thou- 
sands of them, were pressed into service this way and 
never heard of the promised voucher. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



CHAPTER 70. 



TRAGIC DEATH OF WILLIAM ADAMS. 

This tragedy occurred several years before the war. 
Young William Adams was a brother of the pioneer, 
Smith Adams, whom a few yet living in this vicinity 
will remember. Young Adams was visiting his brother 
from his Kentucky home, and like many young men 
of that day, liked to hunt. He came over one day to 
our neighbor, John F. Alloway's place, and they went 
out hunting on Shoal Creek. The accident occurred 
about one and one-half miles southeast of our place, 
near a tract owned by the late Judge Virgil Porter, 
not far from the old pioneer Baldwin's place. 

It was in the woods through which ran a little path. 
Mr. Adams was on his horse waiting for the deer to 
pass, when Mr. Alloway seeing a slight movement in the 
bushes 70 or 80 yards distant and Adams' horse's ears 
moving, thought it was a deer (the horse was about 
the color of a deer at that season of the year). Al- 
loway was a dead shot, so he drew down and fired at the 
moving object, hitting Mr. Adams and fatally wounding 
him in the abdomen. Adams holloed and Alloway went 
to him and found him fatally shot. He went to a near 
neighbor and assistance was gotten as quickly as pos- 
sible. I think Dr. Crawford was the first help he had. 
They sent for the famous surgeon at Gallatin, Dr. 
Cravens, who probed the wound, telling them it was 
fatal. I stood at the bedside when he breathed his last. 
Thus passed a splendid looking young man in the prime 
of 5'oung manhood. 

John Alloway was the father of the v/ife of the well 
known Dr. Longfield of Turney, who died a few years 
ago. 

SAMUEL WILHOIT. 

Samuel Wilhoit bought a claim on the county line 
between Clinton and Caldwell counties of that pioneer 
settler, Willis Creason, who was among the earliest 
settlers of this vicinity. Mr. Wilhoit's farm was about 

178 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



nine miles south of Cameron, and is now owned by Judge 
Wallace, whose wife is one of Mr. Wilhoit's daughters. 
Judge Wallace's people were also early pioneers of Cald- 
well County, settling in the vicinity of Mirabile. The 
writer remembers seeing the elder Mr. Wallace more 
than sixty years ago, who lived to a great age. 

Mr. Wilhoit was among the best farmers of his 
neighborhood, also had a fine orchard. He was a pillar in 
the Christian Church, and the generations following him 
are too numerous to individualize in these short bio- 
graphical sketches. All were first class people. 

CHAPTER 71. 



HOW WE USED TO CATCH QUAILS 

Years ago when there was lots of hazel brush along 
the skirts of timber, there were many flocks of quail, 
sometimes as many as two dozen in a bevy. We would 
make a net out of flax twine with meshes similar to fish 
seins, about one inch square. This net was a long (about 
20 feet) hollow bag with nice, little hickory, or white oak 
hoops, which were either colored, or smoked until as near 
the color of the brush as possible, to keep them from 
scaring the birds. This long bag net was about as big at 
its mouth as a common salt barrel of today. The front 
hoop, in place of being round, was heavier than the round 
hoops, and not fastened together, the ends being sharpen- 
ed to stick into the ground to hold the bag firmly in place. 
This bag got smaller toward the back until it was not 
much, if any, larger than a quail for some two or more 
feet, then was some larger to the back end of it, with a 
strong cord attached to a sharp pin of wood to stick into 
the ground after stretching the bag taut, thus staking it 
into the ground firmly. 

The bag set, we are ready for the wings, which were 
made of same material with meshes, perhaps, a little 
larger. These wings were usually about 20 inches high, 
and 35 to 60 feet long, with nice hickory stakes about % 



179 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

of an inch in diameter 18 inches apart, projecting some 
4 inches below bottom, and being sharpened and driven 
in the ground perpendicularly to hold the wings (as they 
were called) stiff against the quails' attack in trying to 
pass through. These wings were fastened securely to 
the mouth of the bag so that the quails in passing along 
looking for holes to get through, on finding the big, open 
bag would go like a speckled streak into it, and crawl 
through the small part and come to the larger part at the 
back end of the bag, and would never find their way back. 
But some curious boy or girl will ask, did the quails 
go into that trap of their own accord? Not a bit of it. 
In hunting quails with a net, a damp, foggy day in fall or 
winter, when the leaves were off so we could see them, 
was the most favorable time for success. We would 
skulk through the brush as quietly as possible, and first 
locate the bevy, usually setting under some leafy bushes, 
if the weather was a little cold, hovered up and still as a 
mouse. It then behooved us to be still, too. We'd quiet- 
ly slip away. If three of us were along, one would watch 
the birds, and two set the net, then all would get away 
back, hocking and whistling slyly, as it would not do to 
come on them too suddenly or they might get scared and 
fly and scatter. So, if they started to run, we'd watch and 
try to drive them so they'd strike about the center of the 
wide spread crotch wings, and, four times in five, we'd 
get all, or most of them. We've caught many flocks of 
them in nets just south of our present dwelling not 100 
yards from our door. 



CHAPTER 72. 



MY EXPERIENCE IN PROMOTING ELECTRIC 
RAILWAYS. 

About 14 years ago, I got excited about Electric 
Railways, not knowing anything of their cost and the 
dense ignorance of farmers (at that time) concerning 

180 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

electric railways. Nearly every man we went to solicit- 
ing right of way believed we were trying to beat him. 
So I got up a subscription to have a preliminary survey 
from Cameron via the old Parkville grade. I got about 
half enough money to pay for the work. We employed 
a good firm of competent engineers, Burns & McDonnell 
of Kansas City, and ran levels from Cameron to a point 
west of Liberty. Not finding a feasible route via Liberty, 
and getting no encouragement along the line, we aban- 
doned that scheme. 

A short time after, I joined with an organization at 
Liberty which was trying to promote a line from Kansas 
City via Liberty to Excelsior Springs, the best thing at 
that time in sight out of Kansas City, provided we could 
have made arrangements to cross the Missouri River. 
We had all kinds of promises from a Mr. Bates, who 
claimed he represented a company which was going to 
finish the big bridge on the Winner piers. He proved to 
be, as we thought, only a bag of hot wind, like many 
other promoters. 

He insisted on our sending a committee to Boston, 
which we did, sending Mr. J. W. Spratley, whose mother 
I have since met. She was one of the shrewdest real es- 
tate speculators at the time I met her. The other com- 
missioner was Mr. Claud Hardwicke of Liberty, Mo., a 
good friend of mine. Another good friend in Liberty, is 
Mr. Emmett Ward, postmaster. 

Our committee visited Boston capitalists, who talked 
favorably of the enterprise, but would not take the matter 
up until we could show a contract from some reliable 
Bridge Co., to cross our cars. Meantime, Bates' people 
sold the old Winner piers and franchise to the Burling- 
ton — Swift — Armour Syndicate, who, like the ox in the 
manger, would do nothing themselves nor let any body 
else until they grabbed a vast tract of land in the bottoms 
adjoining the north approach to the great bridge they 
have recently finished. Of course, our Liberty Company 
came to grief. However, it is a good thing for Kansas 
City, as these great capitalists are spending millions in 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

improvements that no small company could have fi- 
nanced. 

I got on to a good many things while with that 
Liberty Co., which repaid me one hundred fold for time 
and money spent. 



CHAPTER 73. 



THE BRECKENRIDGES. 

Clinton County will certainly be a prominent county 
for historic names. It has not only been the home of the 
Atchisons, the Birchs, the Biggerstaffs, the Lincolns, the 
Hughes, but many others. Yet a more prominent his- 
torical name than even David R. Atchison lives in Clinton 
County. I think all will agree that the name of Brecken- 
ridge will go down to posterity side by side with that of 
Henry Clay, John J. Crittenden and other noted men of 
Kentucky. 

Mr. Adam Breckenridge of Plattsburg, I have been 
informed, is a cousin or near relative of the historic John 
C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, who was an orator the 
peer of the great statesman and pacificator, Henry Clay. 
He was also Vice President under Buchanan's adminis- 
tration, and nominee of the Southern wing of the De- 
mocracy at Baltimore for President of the United States 
in 1860, and upon the organization of the Confederacy, 
was the chosen Vice President, with Jefferson Davis for 
President. If all these high offices do not make a man a 
historical character, what would? 

There are two of the older Breckenridges in Clinton 
County. The one near Stewartsville I've met only once, 
some twenty years since, and he is probably not living 
now, as he was quite old at that time. Mr. Adam Brec- 
kenridge has three sons living near Turney, who are 
prominent cattle and land owners, and are withal excell- 
ent citizens, creditable alike to their adopted state, as well 
as to that of their nativity, and are fine specimens of the 

18S 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



illustrious family, whose name they bear. Their names 
are Wilmarth, John and Jefferson. Mrs. Wilmarth 
Breckenridge is an indefatigable worker in the Christian 
Church, never tiring in the good work, and will receive 
her well earned reward hereafter. 



CHAPTER 74. 



WHY THE PIONEERS SETTLED ALONG THE 
CREEKS. 

I have been asked many times why the early pioneers 
settled along the woods bordering the creeks, leaving the 
fine prairie lands to be settled last. I can well remember 
when anything like fair, timbered land would sell for 
$10.00 to $20.00 per acre, when at the same time, the 
finest land on the big prairies could be bought for $1.25 
to $2.50 per acre, of the Government, and at one time it 
sold to actual pre-emptors for 12>4 cts. per acre. 

The cause of this inequality in price was, — it was 
nearly impossible to live out on those bleak prairies with 
the little means the poor settlers had. No water, away 
off from wood and stone (the wood to build houses and 
make rails to fence) ; stock all ran at large a good many 
years after war time. The only way to get water then, 
was to dig wells by hand and wall up with stone, and no 
stone nearer than the creeks. 

It took four or five yoke of oxen to plow that tough 
prairie sod, unreasonable as it seems now. Everything 
had to be hewed out by hand. Then, there was no shelter 
for stock on the high prairies, no stock water; in cold 
weather the stock would run off to the woods in a storm 
and stay there till they died, if not driven back. 

Then, with all these things to surmount, why would 
not the poor man (with one yoke of oxen, two cows, one 
or two horses, besides a lot of hazel splitter hogs that 
would winter many open winters in the woods with little 
feed, and less shelter) settle along the creeks near all 

183 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

these absolute necessities? He could plow bottom land 
with one yoke of oxen, and drive them himself; could 
plow the corn with one horse and shovel plow ; could get 
fencing timber and fuel off the ground he plowed, and 
some times raise 50 to 75 bushels of corn the first year, 
and but very little on tough sod. Of course, every one 
would have grabbed the nice prairie if they'd had the 
wealth and facilities of this day. 

And, after all, a great many of the wealthy farmers 
are descendants of these pioneers, and are yet living on 
the same spot they settled 60 to 80 years ago. There are 
many fine houses and big barns on these old farms, being 
near plenty of stock water and timbered shelter. 



CHAPTER 75. 



CAPTAIN JOHN TURNEY. 

In this article I will take up where I left off in a for- 
mer article, entitled, "My First Love Affair." 

After having a good dinner with Mr. Wells and the 
dark haired lady, whom I think was married at this time, 
it was late in the day. All the militia forces had not ar- 
rived, so it was decided to bivouac on the old Fair 
Ground until morning. A pretty tough time we had. No 
commissaries, as usual, to amount to anything, but to 
their credit be it said, the citizens of Plattsburg came to 
rescue by dividing liberally with us. 

From this far day, I believe Plattsburg would have 
been looted and probably burned, as a military necessity 
by the Confederates, as they were moving heaven and 
earth, so to speak, to divert attention to the north side of 
the river that they might swoop down suddenly on Fort 
Leavenworth, Leavenworth City, or Kansas City, and 
capture much needed supplies and arms. In case they 
were successful, hundreds of friends who were at home 
playing neutral, would flock to their standard after arms 
and supplies were assured. 

184 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

Captain John Turney had organized a Company of 
Unionist Militia, who were ready, at a moment's notice, 
to fall in on hearing of the approaching Confederates 
under Thrailkill, one of the bands of Confederates which 
terrorized all the counties north of the Missouri, and 
Bill Anderson, who was killed near Richmond (afterward 
accredited with the merciless killing of a whole Company, 
save one or two, whose horses were too fleet, getting 
away to tell the story of their comrades, who foolishly at- 
tacked Anderson on the prairie near Centralia, in Boone 
County, throwing away their fire at long range). When 
Anderson's men charged, yelling like demons, it caused 
the raw militia horses to stampede on the open prairie, 
whereupon Anderson's men charged in among the help- 
less militia, whose guns had been foolishly emptied at 
long range (doing very little damage), and shot nearly 
every man in the head, I got these facts from a man in 
St. Louis a few years after the war; he was an eye wit- 
ness to this tragedy. His story is too long for this work. 

An incident which occurred the night we camped on 
the old Fair Ground west of town, which scared many of 
us nearly as badly as we were the next day while under 
fire near Camden Point in Platte County. Some loose 
horses got frightened at something, ran and snorted, 
scaring many other horses, and here they came, pell mell, 
right through the men, who were lying around and under 
the old dilapidated fair amphitheater, or show ring. 
They were surrounded and caught, with no further dam- 
age than waking everybody. They didn't wake me ; there 
had been too much excitement the day before for me to 
sleep amid such confusion. Daylight found me pretty 
well used up, as it did many other raw militiamen. 

I give the story of the killing of Captain John Tur- 
ney as I heard it told; at that time I had not heard all 
the particulars. 

Captain Turney, on hearing of this armed force 
(which had looted Dr. Crawford's store at Mirabile and 
killed a militiaman, a Mr. Christopher, on Shoal Creek, 
who was at home on a furlough in his soldier uniform; 

185 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

they shot him in the head — I saw him a few hours after), 
had his men taken across the little creek east of town, and 
posted behind a big rail fence. When the enemy ap- 
proached, the militia opened fire on them, and, as usual, 
they scattered, putting spurs to their horses, and dis- 
appearing in a southwest direction, carrying with them 
some supposedly wounded men; after being repulsed, 
they never returned. 

Our bugles sounded "Feed Call" at early dawn, and 
by sunrise we were after them, with fresh horses, double 
quick, and we soon ran on their trail west of town, head- 
ed in the direction of Union Mills. Every man was or 
dered to load every gun and pistol, and use care, but to 
push his horse to his utmost. 700 or 800 of us going 
helter skelter without paying any attention to rank or 
file, were strung out on the prairie between Plattsburg 
and Union Mills, in the east edge of Platte County. 
Crossing the river, which, at that time, was very low, 
below the mill dam, we hurried on, strung out on the 
road more than a mile long. 

After crossing the river some three miles (the Con- 
federates had left the main road, which at that point ran 
nearly south), we turned into a long, narrow lane run- 
ning west. This lane was more than a quarter of a mile 
long, and was only a private way to a big forest of timber, 
yet uncleared. After passing the lane, the road turned 
into a thick undergrowth of brush, with many tall trees 
interspersed. Here, the Confederates halted, and as our 
vanguard approached, fired into them at point blank 
range, killing a militiaman, by name, I think, of Groom, 
but I was too badly scared and excited at that time to 
make much inquiry. I had often heard that a lot of 
frightened men had no more sense or reason, than a 
drove of wild, scared Texas steers, but I never believed 
it until this occasion. They got mixed up in that brush, 
their horses stampeded from the continuous rattle of 
musketry and revolvers, and pandemonium reigned. 
Our Captain, Isaiah Jones, had been under fire in the 
great battles around Vicksburg, and kept cool, telling the 

186 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

boys to pour it into them, but the boys were scared so 
badly that they poured most of their lead up in the tree 
tops, and the Confederates did about the same, judging 
from the way the little twigs rained down on us. 

Most of us were lying down in the weeds. I didn't 
like my position. I had gotten over my first scare, and 
wanted to see where all that racket in front of us came 
from so I looked a little ahead, up a path across a little 
open spot, and saw Andy Adams standing mighty close 
to a friendly little hickory tree. I made for Andy and 
that tree. He seemed as cool and imperturbable as a cast 
iron Indian in front of an early tobacco store. Approach- 
ing, I said, "Andy, is it big enough for two of us?" He 
replied, saying, "It will help some if we stand edgewise 
and close to it." Talk of being on the ground floor ! I'd 
have given several of those five cent, green back shin 
plasters of those days to have exchanged positions with 
Andy. As it was, the only shot I fired during the whole 
war was from behind Andy and that little tree. I had 
fourteen shots in reserve. I kept thinking of the tragic 
fate of the Militia Company a few days before at Cen- 
tralia. Then and there was the only time I assumed to 
give command over my superiors. I commenced yelling, 
"Load your guns, quick, boys; they may charge on us 
and our guns empty." This skirmish was the only time 
I was under point blank fire during the war. 

I believe it is due to the memory of the heroic Cap- 
tain John Turney, and his fearless Company, to com- 
memorate the brave defence of Plattsburg and the 
County Records. Besides, there were many strong 
Unionists in town, and they certainly would have been 
shot, as was Mr. Christopher on Shoal Creek. I am 
willing, as a taxpayer, to contribute to a fund to have a 
granite shaft erected in the Court yard to commemorate 
this heroic deed. 

It was said after the war, there were several men 
with Thrailkill, who knew every man's political anteced- 
ents in Plattsburg, and some of them, had they fallen into 
the hands of their implacable enemy, would have paid for 

187 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

their political past with their lives, as did many others in 
those days. 



CHAPTER 76. 



THE EARLY PUBLIC MEN OF CLINTON CO. 

While I was too young to be much acquainted with 
many of the early public men of our county, I will say 
that I have seen a few times the most conspicuous man 
(up to this time), who lived for many years and died in 
Clinton County, "General David R. Atchison," among 
whose contemporaries were Judge James H. Birch, with 
whom I was fairly well acquainted in his later years. 
Judge Birch, I think, was the best orator Clinton County 
ever had as a resident citizen, with few equals and no 
superiors west of the Mississippi. General A. W. Doni- 
phan was one of the former. The late John T. Hughes, 
father of the eminent lawyer, Roland Hughes, of Kansas 
City, was the historian of Col. Doniphan's expedition to 
Santa Fe and the lower Rio Grande, and in his book 
characterized Col. Doniphan as the "Xenophon of the 
West." Doniphan was a fine orator, and a great advo- 
cate at the bar of the courts, and left an untarnished 
name not soon to be forgotten. 

I cannot fail to mention another one of my early 
friends and benefactors, Thomas Erskine Birch, brother 
of Judge Birch. Mr. Birch kept a general country store 
for several years in Plattsburg, selling, (as he did many 
others of the early settlers) our supplies and taking in ex- 
change what produce we had to spare, and crediting our 
open account until the end of the year. Then, if we did 
not have the money to balance account, would take a note 
and open a new one. I have yet in my possession a note 
in his handwriting, which I signed nearly sixty years ago. 
The note was paid or it would not be in my possession. 

A good friend of mine is a maternal grandson of 
Thos. E. Birch, Mr. George B. Harrison, Vice President 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

of the great New England National Bank of Kansas 
City. It would seem the mantle of the grandfather has 
fallen on his generations who are still assisting his grand- 
father's friend and customer. 

Allow me to express my appreciation of the many 
favors of the New England National Bank for assisting 
me in any deals I've so far been promoting. 

In closing this chapter of public men of the past, I 
wish to remember my old friend and contemporary of 
all these long years, Col. James H. Birch of Plattsburg. 
The Colonel's history is too well known for me to elabor- 
ate on, and had I his versatile pen and polished diction, I 
indeed might essay to write historical narratives. He 
came to the county the same year I did, hence will re- 
member many of my characters. 

Another familiar name to all old settlers is that of 
Col. Winslow Turner (perhaps the best penman that ever 
made and used a quill pen in Clinton County) as will be 
shown by examining the early records he made in his 
well known handwriting. I now have in my father's old 
papers, an instrument in his handwriting, an order of 
the County Court, dated August, 1842, appointing Isaac 
D. Baldwin, John Durbin and Luke Williams (my 
father) Commissioners to organize Township 56-Range 
30, as a public school district, which order was carried 
out, and the first public schoolhouse in Shoal Township 
was built the next season. I helped build it although but 
a boy, and the first free school I went to was in that 
house, taught by Edward Matthews, which, I think, was 
in the fall of 1843 t)r 44. 

Dec. 22, 1911. 



CHAPTER 77. 



MARKETING PORK SIXTY YEARS AGO. 

I give this little story of marketing butchered hogi 
to show to what extremities we were pushed to get a 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

little ready money in the days before railway transpor- 
tation reached us. 

I think it was in the winter of 1852 that we had 
about six fat hogs more than we needed for home con- 
sumption. We butchered them with the intention of 
hauling the pork carcasses to St. Joseph, the nearest Mis- 
souri River market, and is yet, for that matter. It was in 
January and awful cold. I loaded them in my wagon and 
started, cold as it was. It grew a great deal colder before 
I reached St. Joseph, I remember. 

I went via Plattsburg and stayed the first night at 
the old pioneer's, John McCowan, on Castile Creek. 
Next morning, with the mercury away below zero, if 
we'd had any thermometers (I'd never even seen one of 
them then), I hitched up and started a little late on ac- 
count of the intense cold. The pork was frozen as hard 
as ice. No danger of its spoiling, which was one consol- 
ing fact. Not being very warmly clothed, I had to stop 
frequently to warm at farm houses, but "the latch string" 
hung out in those days. 

I worried along that cold day and stopped five miles 
out of town, staying with a nice Kentucky family (any 
of the people on public roads would keep travelers in 
those days). It was at this place I first heard the music 
of that wonderful (to me) instrument which my mother 
used to tell us about which she had seen and heard in her 
girlhood days in St. Louis, when she was a schoolmate 
of the Chateaus, Laroux, Robidoux's, Lucasses and 
Charlesses, the "piano." After hearing the good lady play 
a few selections, she opened the lid, showing me the 
stringed harp of the wonderful instrument, which Jenk- 
ins of Kansas City, if he could find as poor a one as it 
was, would be glad to get a $25.00 offer for, pay $1.00 
down the "balance like rent." However, it would be 
worth more as a curious relic of the past, than it could 
be sold for any other purpose. 

Being not quite so cold next morning, I started for 
town. The road had lots of pork wagons that morning, 
all headed for market. There were two or more concerns 

100 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

buying the butchered pork and packing it. Among them 
was a Mr. Hamilton (I think this man Hamilton was 
Mrs. A. T. Baubie's father). They all had sentinels 
on the outposts buying these loads of pork. I had learn- 
ed where I stayed with the piano people, that Mr. Hamil- 
ton was about the best buyer, and his place was right on 
my route in the center of town, so I drove up to Hamil- 
ton's pork house. A gentleman was on the lookout. 
Hailing me, he asked if my load was sold. I answered in 
the negative, and he came and looked it over and said 
he'd give me, I think it was $4.75 per hundred in gold 
coin, so I sold to him, and in payment he gave me one of 
those $50.00 octagon gold pieces coined by Clark & Co.'s 
assay office in San Francisco for convenience of trade, at 
that time, on the Pacific Coast, before the U. S. Mint had 
been established there. That was the only one of those 
$50.00 coins I ever got in trade. They were unalloyed 
gold, and were not legal tender, but I never heard of a 
case where they had to be forced on any one in payment 
of any obligation. 

I have now in my shop, one big plane bought with 
some of the proceeds of that sale, besides a redeemed note 
held in Plattsburg for goods furnished us the summer 
before. That was the last, and only pork I ever hauled 
to Missouri River points, but later on, we hauled a load 
of bacon to Weston, which sold for 7c per lb., and those 
hogs were fattened mostly on "mast" and finished on 
corn. 

I will ask my live stock friends how they v/ould like 
to have such facilities now for marketing their hogs, to 
say nothing about cattle. 



191 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



CHAPTER 78. 



MY MEMORY OF THE KILLING OF JAMES PAW- 
LEY, AND ONE OF THE NICHOLSON 
BROTHERS OF CENTERVILLE, 
NOW KEARNEY, CLAY CO., 
MO. 

It is a matter of history that in the first breaking out 
of the great Civil War many young men (good men) 
were persuaded and feasted, and by the alluring smiles of 
their young lady loves and friends, were enlisted and 
rushed off into General Sterling Price's army with the 
hue and cry that the Dutch and "Black Republicans" 
had invaded the sacred soil of Missouri. So when it 
came to the test, these young bloods found by their ex- 
perience on the bloody fields of V/ilson's Creek, Pea 
Ridge, Cowskin Prairie and many other hard contested 
fields, that war, instead of dress parade and picnics with 
the alluring smiles of their sweethearts and intended 
mother-in-laws, was an awful reality, and was well 
named, many years after by General Sherman. 

So, after the campaign of one summer participating 
in all the hardships, suffering, sickness, hunger of the 
campaign, without clothing, commissaries, or money, 
their ranks decimated by the bullets of adversaries and 
contagion, many of these early 'Confederate recruits 
(under a proclamation issued by the Union authorities 
then, and ever after controlling the state) came back 
home and took the oath of allegiance to the old flag. (A 
pretty bitter pill for many of them to swallow), but it 
was a ground hog case; they had to or lay out in the 
woods and starve and freeze. Some of them tried the 
brush rather than submit to the sometimes cruel officials 
in command. ( It was a mighty poor time in those days 
for social or love affairs), and many of those who came 
back and refused to surrender and take the oath, their 
deadly opponents prescribed for them, either got them- 
selves killed, or their friends in trouble, or both, and this 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

was Border Warfare, and a terrible thing it was in many 
of the Western Missouri River counties all through the 
war. 

Young Pawley, together with a good many other 
young men of the vicinity a few miles south of here, en- 
listed at one of these fine picnics spoken of above, held 
near the Brooking school house. I don't now remember 
who commanded the company, but they went south in 
a hurry as a company of Union soldiers lit off the cars 
one night about this time and arrested a good many who 
were promoting this lively Confederate movement, to 
their terrible chagrin. Deep and bitter were their ana- 
themas against the "Black Republicans" and Dutch, as 
they called all Union men at that time. They still smart- 
ed under General Lyons' famous "Coup d'etat" at St. 
Louis. 

Young Pawley, like many others, came back having 
had the measles and not fit for military duty in winter. 
Cameron, at that time, was a terror to Confederate sym- 
pathizers, hence, he stopped with some people in Clay 
County by the name of Nicholson. I have never known 
whether the Nicholsons, any of them, were ever with the 
Confederates, but think some of them were. A short 
time after the war, I became acquainted with their father 
and I formed a very favorable opinion of the old gentle- 
man, at that time. Although I was on the Union side, I'd 
not have been a bit afraid to have trusted myself as his 
guest; even if he had known I had ten thousand dollars 
on my person. I think Mr. Nicholson was a fair example 
of many men of the South. We all know the best men of 
the "Lost Cause" were the last to surrender. 

I got the facts which I herein state, from one of 
Clay County's early and best citizens shortly after the 
great struggle closed. I think all the older citizens of 
Kearney v/ill agree with me when I say that the good old 
Baptist preacher. Elder Franklin Graves, was one of 
Clay County's best people. Elder Graves' story was as 
follows : 

"One afternoon, I, together with a good many others, 

193 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

were in a drug store in Centerville, now Kearney, when 
suddenly a squad of armed, and apparently drunken 
soldiers in Union uniforms, surrounded the building yell- 
ing and firing promiscuously and ordering everybody to 
surrender. There were several militiamen, including one 
or two of the Nicholson boys, who then belonged to a 
company of so called "pawpaw" militia. The so called 
"pawpaw" militia were mostly those returned Confeder- 
ate soldiers before mentioned, and there was, at that 
time, no great deal of love for them among Union sold- 
iers, as we all who participated in the struggle, know. 

The Nicholson boys, instead of showing the "white 
feather," out with their pistols and guns and commenced 
to return the fire. The noisy Union soldiers turned and 
fled helter skelter, and the "pawpaw" militia after them 
firing as they went, killing one of the soldiers; I think 
his name was Bonds, a man who was raised not far from 
Haynesville, if I am right. 

The whole country was aroused. A bunch of "paw- 
paw" militia bushwhackers had killed a Union soldier. 
Nobody ever stopped to inquire how it happened, but a 
Union soldier had been killed was enough. It got so hot 
in the vicinity of Centerville that two of he Nicholson's 
and young Pawley slid out and came to this neighbor- 
hood to Pawley's father, leaving their horses and then 
going to Osborn, being afraid to go to Cameron. They 
intended, as was learned afterward, to go to some north- 
ern state to hide their identity. 

They all three boarded a morning train going east. 
Word coming to Cameron (where a company of Union 
soldier militia, in which the writer was, I believe, a Cor- 
poral, although I never did find out whether I was a high 
private or an officer ; one thing sure, I was not like some 
of my company, a pensioner, was stationed), that three 
bushwhackers, who had killed the Union soldier at Cen- 
terville were on board the train going east, but the train 
had passed before the word came, and so the commanding 
officer at Brookfield was notified by telegram. Upon ar- 
riving there, the two Nicholson's and young Pawley were 

194 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

taken off and condemned without a trial, and taken out 
on the prairie by an armed squad of enraged soldiers and 
told to run for life, firing on them as they started to run, 
killing James Pawley and one of the Nicholson brothers, 
the other making his escape in the darkness, the soldiers 
either too lazy, or not wanting to follow him. 

All we know yet is what Mr. Nicholson told after 
the war. I will say I was a neighbor of Mr. Pawley, and 
while at that time had but little sympathy for Rebels, as 
we termed them, but when I saw the good sister of 
Pawley weeping for the fate hanging over her brother, 
I went to our officer in command and begged of him to 
telegraph Brookfield to hold the prisoners until they 
could have a hearing. At the time I thought they were 
guilty and merited death. I had not heard Elder Graves' 
story of the fight then. 

In connection with this tragic story, I want to pay 
a tribute to the memory of Lieutenant, afterwards Judge 
Jacob Estep. While standing around weeping apparent- 
ly without a sympathizing friend in that hostile camp. 
Miss Dora Pawley was approached by Lieutenant Jacob 
Estep (who was second in command, hence could do 
nothing officially, and perhaps like myself, half way be- 
lieved that Pawley and the Nicholson's were really bush- 
whackers, and by orders merited death), asked Miss Paw- 
ley if she would like to go to Brookfield to see if she 
could do anything for her brother. She said she would, 
but had no money or friends. Thereupon he drew out 
of his pocket wallet a twenty dollar greenback and gave 
it to her. She thought she would not need that much, 
but he told her to take it along as she might need it. 
Tears come to my eyes to this day when I think of the 
grateful look she gave her friend and benefactor. 

I want to say to posterity that I think I know as 
much about the Pawley family as any living man out- 
side of their own people. 

It so happened that three or four armed men made 
a raid one evening just at dark on our immediate neigh- 
borhood and robbed several of our good German neigh- 

1B5 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

bors of several hundred dollars. It so happened I had at 
the time of the robbery, about $1300.00 with which I was 
going to pay for grain contracted. I hid it in a pile of 
brick for awhile, but the mice found it and commenced to 
make nests of it, so I decided to take it to St. Joseph and 
leave it in a bank, which I did the evening before the rob- 
bery, or I think it would have gone like the neighbors' 
did. I always did believe our own militia got that money, 
and to save themselves laid the robbery on Pawley's, 
who were scared too bad at that time to stay at home, 
much less rob their neighbors. My reason for believing 
some bad men at Cameron got that money is, I told it 
publicly that I was going to leave my money in a St. 
Joseph bank, hence, they did not stop at my place. 



CHAPTER 79. 



CARRYING THE MAILS 68 YEARS AGO. 

In another chapter I have mentioned the first post 
office in the present limits of Shoal Township which 
was named Beehive. About the year 1843 or 44 — a post 
route was established between Richmond in Ray County 
via the old Elkhorn and a few cross road post offices 
along the route to Athens in Gentry county, at that time 
a Border county. 

A contract for carrying the mails one trip a week 
between these points was let. This route took in the 
embryo townships of Maysville and Gentr5rville and the 
Mount Refuge office. The contractor was one Adolphus 
Baldwin, son of the postmaster at Mount Refuge, the 
pioneer Isaac D. Baldwin, with Willim S. Williams, 
"Uncle Bill" — a son-in-law as assistant carrier. So 
Baldwin got a carpenter to make of walnut lumber a 
primitive postbox to contain the mail in one room of 
his double log house, with one door and strong black- 
smith made hasp and staple for padlock to keep any of 
his sixteen children with meddlesome propensities on 
the outside of this sanctum sanctorium. Every thing 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

being ready, the mail carrier started. However, he was 
not escorted with a brass band as was the rural carrier 
on Route 1, fifty-five years later, who passed the old 
post office site and over at least ten miles of this old 
route traversed by that ancient mail route from Rich- 
mond to Athens. 

This Dolphus Baldwin carrier was more of a sine- 
cure than a real mail carrier, so when the real pinch of 
bitter cold weather came, Uncle Bill had to take the old 
mule and Uncle Sams' mail bags and carry them through 
trackless wastes of prairie and woodlands, at that time 
the woodlands predominating. 

On one occasion he told me many years after, he 
and the old mule had floundered along through deep 
snow drifts over the trackless prairie south and north of 
where Osborn now is, finally about night striking the 
timbered country on Lost Creek south of Maysville, 
losing the road in the woods. The mule tired out carry- 
ing a heavy man and two weeks mail, falling into gulleys 
and ditches covered with snow, so they were completely 
lost on a terribly cold night. Uncle Bill said he stopped 
to consider, looking anxiously for a light, listening for 
noise of any living thing, and nearly freezing besides. 
Finally he heard a faint sound of a cow bell in a low 
sheltered bottom up the creek. Going up, he found some 
cows. So he commenced hallooing, calling dogs and 
yelling, scaring the cows who run for home to their 
calves, Williams and the mule following them to the 
cabin of the settler, finding a cordial warm reception. 



CHAPTER 80. 



A PECULIAR FAMILY. 



The McCartneys. 

I am justified in devoting more space in this little 
work to this peculiar family than any other of my early 

197 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

acquaintance. I was better acquainted with them than 
I was with many other of my neighbors, as our post 
office was kept at their farm. They also kept a fine 
nursery of all kinds of fruit and shrubbery, and at that 
time I was an enthusiast for fruits, which has followed 
me all through my business career, as the older citizens 
will attest. 

One peculiarity of this family was, that they all (for 
many years) hung together like a community of Shakers. 
They seemed to be in love with one another, and what 
was one's interest was all the others', and they got along 
together like a hive of working bees with no drones to 
dispose of; they had no places for drones as bees have. 

Being so well acquainted with this good family of 
bachelors and maidens, as their place was a social cen- 
ter, so to speak, as well as business center in the days 
before Cameron sprung up (a good many years ago), 
till, finally, the great war came sundering all those social 
ties, so delightful, (as well as tinged with pathos) to 
contemplate by the very few of us now left. 

There were, when I first knew them sixty-three 
years ago, beside their mother, six boys, John P., Hiram 
A., Asher William, J. R. (Doc.) and Gratton, who have 
all passed away. The girls' names were, Rebecca, (Mrs. 
James Steele, mother of Judge Ed. Steele, who is yet 
living with the Judge more than eighty-two years of age.) 
Mary, first wife of Major Plumb, the old veteran of Civil 
War memory, mother of William Plumb, who inherited 
part of the old McCartney home; Sallie, who married 
David Reed, one of my old time acquaintances, a good 
many years before war time — both are now dead these 
many years. I yet have some snow balls on my front 
lawn given me by this good woman fifty-five or more 
years ago. All the McCartney girls were enthusiastic 
lovers of flowers. The fact is, I admired flowers then, 
as well as the girls that fostered them, and do yet, for 
that matter. 

The next is Marguerite "J^^ie" who, for many years, 
acted as matron for the family, but finally married a 

198 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

gentleman whose name was Barnett, an 

official of Daviess County. She is yet living in Gallatin 
at the ripe age of seventy-four years. If I had language 
at my command to record all the good things I know of 
her, I believe it would bring the old time scarlet blush 
to her cheek. However, ic is sufficient to say that she 
"Remembered her Creator in the days of her youth," 
and He hath not forgotten her in age. 

Harriet McCartney, the youngest of this family of 
ancient Virginia lineage. There is a melancholy pathos 
surrounding the early life of this beautiful, vivacious, 
lovely girl too sacred to be unveiled. She married a 
gentleman standing high in social and business circles, 
— (as I've been told), and lived but a few years, leaving 
two children, daughters, I believe. 

When dim, receding memory of this bright, good, 
womanly girl brings her to mind, somehow the pathetic 
lines of Grey's Elegy are always present : 

"Full many a flower is born to blow and blush unseen 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 

"I never had a dear gazelle, 

With a mild blue eye, 

But when it came to know and love me well, 

'Twas sure to pine away and die." 

But her old time friends have the consolation that 
her beautiful disembodied spirit has winged its flight to 
that better land so well described by Felicia Heman in 
these beautiful lines: 

"Eye hath not seen it, my gentle boy, 

Ear hath not heard its songs of joy, 

Dreams cannot picture a world so fair. 

Sorrow and Death may not enter there; 

Time doth not mar its fadeless bloom. 

Far above the clouds and beyond the tomb." 

Some years since I was visiting my sister, Mrs. 
Sallie A. Hockensmith, and she and I, in looking 
through an old family book, noticed the faded fringe of 
a ribbon marker. On opening the book there was a re- 

199 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

minder of other days. Beautifully lettered on perfor- 
ated card board was the motto, — "Friendship's offering. 
Hattie." While silently contemplating the little gift of 
girlhood days, I noticed the silent tear in Sister's eyes 
and in my own. I felt a film pass over them obscuring, 
for the time, my vision. We turned away without say- 
ing a word. There are times when feeling is too intense 
for words. 

I am glad now (it is nearly fifty years since I saw 
her last) to pay this tribute to her memory. 

A melancholy pathos surrounds the memory of this 
good family. 

There is now not one male descendant left bearing 
the family name, but one of the brothers ever marrying 
and he left no children. "Of all sad words of tongue or 
pen, the saddest are these, It might have been." 

Midway Place, December, 1911. 



CHAPTER 81. 



JOHN T. JONES. 

Mr. John T. Jones came to Missouri from Ohio 
about the year 1852, stopping near Mirabile. A year or 
two before I knew much about him, he bought a fine 
tract of timber at the mouth of Brushy Creek, the old 
Bozarth, Durbin mill tract, at that time the best timber 
on Shoal Creek in Clinton County. He also bought out 
the farm and improvements of David O'Donnell, adjoin- 
ing this timbered tract, beside several other tracts and 
farms. He was considered quite wealthy for that time. 
Mrs. Jones was a sister of Governor George Smith, of 
Caldwell County, who came to Missouri several years 
before Mr. Jones did. Uncle John, as nearly all of his 
neighbors called him, was a first class man and a mighty 
good friend of mine, when I needed friends ; however, 
we always need friends. 

He was father of Captain Isaiah Jones, who was 

200 



SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

my partner in the live stock and grain business for a 
considerable time during the war. He was also Mrs. 
Hiram Gorrell's and Thomas P. Jones' father. Thomas 
P. now owns his old homestead containing nearly 1000 
acres. I have known four generations of this good Jones 
family. They are very prosperous, energetic, good citi- 
zens and church members, nearly all of them. Mr. 
Arthur Johnson and sisters are grandchildren of John 
T. Jones. I was well acquainted with Mr. Frank John- 
son, Arthur's father, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Hiram 
Gorrell, my near neighbors and good friends for nearly 
fifty years. Mr. John Gorrell owns one of the finest 
farms near Cameron, containing 320 acres. Twenty-five 
years ago he was hiring by the month. Everett and 
Wilson and John Parry own the largest clothing estab- 
lishment in Cameron, the first two being sons of Mr. 
Gorrell, and Mr. Parry a son-in-law. I've never had 
better friends than the Jones and Gorrells. 

Mr. John T. Jones has been dead more than 30 
years, and Mr. Hiram Gorrell about five years. Mr. 
Hiram Gorrell was fifer in our company of militia in war 
time, and the best one I ever heard ; was also a fine sing- 
er and natural musician. His death made a sad impres- 
sion on all of his many friends. He will be remembered 
and missed by those who knew him best to the end of 
their lives. 



CHAPTER 82. 



FRED WOLFERMAN. 

Mr. Fred Wolferman, the Walnut Street "Good 
Things to Eat" grocer of Kansas City, has one of the 
finest establishments of the kind I've ever seen; I think 
a long shot the best in Kansas City. 

I am fairly well acquainted with Mr. Fred and his 
father, and have found no nicer or more prompt and re- 
liable gentlemen in Kansas City with whom to do busi- 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

ness. Mr. Fred is the owner of Lonesomehurst Park, 
which I sold to him some years since. 

Lonesomehurst could be improved and made one of 
the most picturesque country residences south of the 
great city. No better neighbors anywhere. I have a 
warm place in my heart for Lonesomehurst and its sur- 
roundings. 



LONESOMEHURST PARK. 

If you are in a seeing mood 
-<^Xook at scenery that will do you good 
Out by the big Chicken Ranch 
One mile south on Dykes Branch. 
Look cast from the bridge 
And you'll see first 
The park we call "Lonesomehurst." 
If you would further beauties seek 
Follow down the little creek 
Midst gnarled trees and sylvan shades, 
Hanging vines and colonades. 

Go on down just to the gorge 

When you are there you'll thing I gerge 

What a good thing 

Is this great living spring. 

If you would pure ozone sniff 

Then clamber up the rugged cliff 

From this giddy height you'll say, I ween, 

A prettier sight is seldom seen. 

The creeks below a silver sheen. 

The park beyond in living green. 

If 'twas winter, you would think, 

This man owns a skating rink, 

If in summer, you would wish. 

For a pole and hook, to catch some fish. 

When nimble squirrels dart in and out, 
And bright hued birds are all about 
'Tis spring-time then without a doubt. 
With trees, and shrubs, always in bloom 
And every breeze wafting sweet perfume 
We'd want to live till day of doom. 
The house up on hill top ground, 
With natural drive all way round, 
A prettier Site cannot be found. 
Big trees left standing in park and lawn 
Bring fresh to mind great forests gone 
And admonish us how time has flown. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



I've told this tale to you in verse, 

No need just now to more rehearse. 

They could be better, 

They might be worse. 

Be that as it may, 

Permit me to say. 

They are such as we have, 

At "Lonesomehurst." 

April 21st, 1908 James Williams. 



CHAPTER 83. 



GEORGE WHITE. 

George White was a very early settler in Clinton 
County on the head waters of Crooked River, near the 
Brookin School House. He was a saddle and harness 
maker as well as farmer. He made the saddle that my 
father rode on those long lonely preaching trips, and 
like my father, adhered to the principles as exemplified 
by the early exponent of the Baptist faith, which he 
clung to as long as the writer knew him. One had to 
be an awful dyspeptic to not enjoy his good humored 
sallies of wit. I remember being with him and some 
other stockmen in Chicago in war time. We were walk- 
ing along a down town street passing a great (for that 
time) big building. Pointing to it, he said, "Gentlemen, 
that building reminds me of my residence out on Shoal 
Creek in Missouri, only my house has a lean-to shed 
kitchen." It was not so much what he said but the way 
he said it and how he looked. Brother White's home was 
headquarters for Baptist preachers in early days. On one 
occasion he invited my father and a back-woods early 
day noisy exhorter home with him. White was so full 
of his fun and mischief (he didn't have much use for the 
noisy tobacco juice spitter) so he got to telling stories 
how his wife's chickens would fly and scamper off in the 
brush (he lived in the edge of the woods) when they 
saw a preacher ride up to the stile and throw his bridle 
rein over a fence stake. My father said Bro. "Tom" 
didn't like it a bit but had to grin and bear it. Sister 

203 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

White came to Bro. Tom's rescue, saying George must 
have his fun. I think he sold goods quite a while in old 
Haynesville, but moved about the beginning of the war 
to a farm about four miles south of my home, and handled 
quite a lot of all kinds of stock during the civil war. At 
the end of the war he moved to Atchison, Kansas, and en- 
gaged in the Salt Lake overland trade (as I have heard) 
for several years. Living to a very great age, retaining 
(his son. Church, writes me) his general good humor 
to the end. I can't refrain in this connection from tell- 
ing a funny little incident joke on his daughter Mollie 
and her brother Church. It occurred the morning they 
were getting their household and kitchen furniture out 
in the front yard preparatory to being loaded on wagons 
to be hauled to Cameron for shipment to Atchison. 

They had had a family of negro freedmen living 
with them; the woman doing the cooking, her husband, 
"Ely," helping the men. This family of freedmen had 
formerly belonged to Mr. Croyesdale's wife (nee Skin- 
ner) and came and worked for the writer quite a while 
after the White family moved to Atchison. 

It seemed that Church didn't think his sister Mollie 
was quite as familiar with that cooking stove as she 
probably would be later on. They were both out in the 
yard where the goods and stove were being gotten ready 
for the wagons. Whereupon, Church grabbed his sister's 
hand turning her around, suddenly saying, "Miss White, 
this very important article of kitchen furniture is a cook- 
ing stove. Miss White, you are going to a state where 
a nigger is a colored person. You and this stove. Miss 
White, will in all probability become a great deal better 
acquainted than you have been heretofore." I was pres- 
ent, and never will forget how funny Mollie looked, but 
Church did not even smile but looked about as funny as 
did his sister Mollie. Church writes me, he and Mollie 
are still living in Atchison, though growing old. They 
are niece and nephew to the late Church White who died 
several years since in Kansas City, and are cousins of 
the big lumber magnate, R. A. Long, owner of the sky- 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

scraper building at 10th Street and Grand Avenue, Kan- 
sas City, Mo. 

There were no nicer young people than Church and 
Mollie White when they lived here 47 years ago. 



I can think of no more appropriate farewell to my 
readers and long ago friends than a poem published near- 
ly one hundred years ago in a little book entitled, "Songs 
of Our Grandmothers," recounting the many valiant 
deeds of our forefathers of the Revolution, and War of 
1812. This pathetically tragic incident made an impres- 
sion on my young mind that sixty years have not entire- 
ly effaced. 

Some twenty years ago an article appeared in the 
papers of Northern Ohio, and was largely copied by 
papers of the West, giving an account of the death of a 
very old maiden lady, who was the heroine of the sad 
tragedy recounted by the poet, whose name I do not re- 
member, if I ever knew it. I can only (not having the 
little book long since lost sight of) give the poem from 
memory, which will give the thoughts of the poet, if not 
his exact words. It is as follows : 

"Sons of Freedom, listen to me, 
And ye daughters, too, g^ive ear; 
You, a sad and mournful story 
As was ever told, shall hear. 

Hull, you know, his troops surrendered 
And, defenseless, left the west; 
Then our forces quick assembled. 
The invader to resist. 

'Mongst the troops that marched to Erie 
Were the Kingston volunteers; 
Captain Thomas them commanded. 
To protect our west frontiers. 

But there's one among the number, 
Tall and graceful is his mien, 
Firm his step, his look undaunted, 
Scarce a nobler youth was seen. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 



Tender were the scenes of parting, 
Mothers wrung their hands and cried; 
Maidens wept their swains in secret, 
Fathers throve their hearts to hide. 

One sweet kiss, he snatched from Mary, 
Craved his mother's prayer once more. 
Pressed his father's hand and left them 
For Lake Erie's distant shore, 

(The two lines that should be here are 
forgotten by the writer). 
Goodbye, Bird, may Heaven protect you 
From the rest at parting broke. 

Soon they came where noble Perry, 
Had assembled all his fleet. 
Out upon the broad Lake Erie, 
Hoping soon the foe to meet. 

Where is Bird, the battle rages; 
Is he in the strife or no; 
Now the cannons roar tremendeous 
Dare he meet the hostile foe. 

Ah, behold him, see him Perry 
In the self same ship they fight 
And his messmates fall around him. 
Nothing can his soul affright; 

But, behold, a ball has struck him. 
See the crimson current flow; 
'Leave the deck!' exclaimed brave Perry, 
'No,' cried Bird, 'I will not go.' 

Still he fought, though faint and bleeding. 
Till the Stars and Stripes arose 
Victory having crowned our efforts; 
All triumphant o'er our foes. 

And did Bird receive a pension? 
Was he to his friends restored? 
No! nor never to his bosom 
Clasped the maid his heart adored. 

'Dearest, Mother,' said the letter, 
'Tis the last you'll have from me; 
I must suffer for deserting 
From the Brig Niagara.' 

Sad and gloomy was the morning 
Bird was ordered out to die; 
Where's the heart not dead to pity, 
But for him would heave a sigh. 



SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER 

See, he rides upon his coffin 
With his head in shrouded hood; 
Let his courage plead for mercy, 
Sure his death will do no good. 

Hark, hark! Oh, God, they've shot him! 
Farewell, Bird, farewell for ever; 
Friends and home hell see no more, 
For his mangled corpse lies buried 
On Lake Erie's distant shore." 



FINIS. 




INDEX. 



Chapter Pa4e 

Preface 2 

1 My Parentage 3 

2 Autobiography of James 

Williams 4 

3 My First Love Affair 7 

4 A War Time Love Affair.. 9 

5 My Marriage 13 

6 My Two Sisters 14 

7 An Indian Story 16 

8 First Commercial Venture. 19 

9 A 'Possum Hunt Sixty-two 

Years Ago 21 

10 Hemp and Bacon Going to 

Market 22 

11 How Dave Kirpatrick and 

Zeke Duncan Beat Some 
Three-Card Monte Men. 24 

12 J. Q. A. Kemper 29 

13 Colonel A. W. Doniphan.. 30 

14 Funny War Time Incident. 32 

15 Clinton County's Heavy 

Court 34 

16 How a Lynx Looks 36 

17 St. Joseph Plow Factories. . 40 

18 O. H. P. Newberry 43 

19 Price Harlan . 45 

20 Going to Mill Sixty-Three 

Years Ago 47 

21 The Early Day Hard Shell 

Baptist Preacher 52 

22 Shipping Stock Fifty-Two 

Years Ago 55 

23 Why and How Cameron 

Got the Name it Bears.. 57 

24 A Tribute to D. Ward King 

of Maitland, Mo 58 

25 Peddling Chickens to Ft. 

Leavenworth Years Ago. 59 

26 The Old Shawnee Mission 63 

27 Some Unwritten History.. 65 

28 Shipping Salt Cameron, Mo., 

to Winterset, Iowa 69 

29 Rural Route No. 1, Came- 

ron, Missouri 73 

30 My First Trip to Cameron 

—Colonel M. F, Tiernan 76 

31 Kansas City's Big Drunk. . . 78 

32 B. F. Davis 80 

33 First Impressions 81 

34 Canning Fruits, Meats, Etc. 82 

35 William E. Croysdale 84 

36 The Tragic Death of W. B. 

La Force . . 87 

37 Ernest Kellerstrass 88 

38 Morgan Boone 89 

39 Some Things I've Seen in 

Theatres and Shows 89 

40 Topographical Survey— 1846 92 

41 Isaac D. Baldwin, The Pio- 

neer Settler of Shoal 
Township, Clinton County 94 



Chapter Patfe 

42 Hiram. Stephenson 96 

43 An Experience with Wolves 

65 Years Ago 98 

44 Blooded Cattle 101 

45 How Near I Came to Being 

Killed bv Falling Trees. 102 

46 The Old Fashioned Spell- 

ing School 105 

47 Dreams 114 

48 An Allegory 117 

49 Some Panther Stories. ... 123 

50 An Inventor 126 

51 Missouri Products 127 

52 A Trip to Lawrence, 1860. 131 

53 The Tragic Ending of Four 

of The Beatty Family... 138 

54 Catching Wolves in an 

Early Day 140 

55 Far West 70 Years Ago... 142 

56 Charles E. Packard 144 

57 Our German Neighbors . . 145 

58 Going Across the Plains in 

Early Days • 146 

59 What Awful Liars Some 

People Are 150 

60 The Potter Families 152 

61 Reminiscent of the Past... 154 

62 Dave C'Donnell 158 

63 A Trip on the Steamboat 

"Morning Star" 160 

64 Hiram A. McCartney. .... .162 

65 A War Time Dance at 

Mike Moore's Five Miles 
North of Cameron 165 

66 John P. McCartney 169 

67 Joseph Charless 171 

68 John R. Miner 173 

69 The James Boys' Father.. 174 

70 Tragic Death of William 

Adams 178 

71 How We Caught Quail... 179 

Quails 179 

72 My Experience in Promot- 
ing Electric Railways .... 180 

73 The Breckenridges 182 

74 Why the Pioneers Settled 

Along the Creeks 183 

75 Captain John Turney 184 

76 The Early Public Men of 

Clinton County 188 

77 Marketing Pork Sixty 

Years Ago 189 

78 My Memory of the Killing 

of James Pawley and One 
of the Nicholson Broth- 
ers 192 

79 Carrying the Mails 68 Years 

Ago 196 

£0 A Peculiar Family 197 

81 John T. Jones 200 

82 Fred Wolferma*- 201 

83 George White 203 



Litst-IMMY Uh UUNUHbSS 

II ill If ill!! liiiiiirii! 




